Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania

Fall/
Winter
2018

The ACMJC

(A tribute to Al Cohn)

Celebrates
30 years

Stanley
Turrentine
Q&A
with

COTA’s 40th

Vol. 28 - No. 1

Iss u e 6 9

Fall / W i n t e r 2 0 1 8
The Note is published twice a year by the Al Cohn Memorial
Jazz Collection, East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania,
as part of its educational outreach program.
Al Cohn (1925-1988)
The Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection was founded in 1988 by
Flo Cohn, Ralph Hughes, Phil Woods, Dr. Larry Fisher, ESU Vice
President for Development & Advancement Larry Naftulin, and
ESU President Dr. James Gilbert.
Editor
Matt Vashlishan, D.M.A.
Bill Potts at the ACMJC Booth
- 1988 COTA Festival

On the cover
Q &A with Stanley
7 	

Larry Fisher at the ACMJC Booth
- 1988 COTA Festival

Design and Production
Office of University Relations
Ideal Design Solutions

From The Collection

University President
Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D.

Celebration
of the Arts – 40 Years
th

In This Issue

3	A Note from the
Collection Coordinator

Cover photo: Al Cohn
Photo by Jack Bradley

4	From the Bridge: Get Lost

6

The Baddest Turrentine

13 	Jazz: America’s Original Remix
14 	Phil Woods’ Set Break 18,
Tail Of Two Kitties,
A Children’s Story for Aimee

16	Reflections on Keith Jarrett’s
At the Deer Head Inn

Center spread photo:
Bucky Pizzarelli
and Zoot Sims

2 2	Patrick Dorian’s full essay
on Phil Woods
2 9	His Legacy Lives On: In music,
if not in fame, Al Cohn reached
the pinnacle
31	David Liebman: Smithsonian
Institute NEA Jazz Masters
Project
34 Readers, Please Take Note

(570)422-3828
esu.edu/alcohncollection
esu.edu/jazzatesu

Turrentine My Life in Music

20	cota’s 40

Al Cohn Memorial
Jazz Collection
Kemp Library
East Stroudsburg University
200 Prospect St.
East Stroudsburg, PA 18301

Back cover photo:
Al Cohn - from the
ACMJC archives

The mission of the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection is to
stimulate, enrich, and support research, teaching, learning,
and appreciation of all forms of jazz, particularly those
connected to the Pocono area of Pennsylvania. The ACMJC
is a distinctive archive built upon a unique and symbiotic
relationship between the Pocono Mountains jazz community
and East Stroudsburg University.
With the support of a world-wide network of jazz advocates,
the ACMJC seeks to promote the local and global history
of jazz by making its resources available and useful to
students, researchers, educators, musicians, historians,
journalists and jazz enthusiasts of all kinds, and to preserve
its holdings for future generations.
East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania is committed to equal
opportunity for its students, employees and applicants. The university
is committed to providing equal educational and employment rights
to all persons without regard to race, color, sex, religion, national
origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or veteran’s
status. Each member of the university community has a right to study
and work in an environment free from any form of racial, ethnic, and
sexual discrimination including sexual harassment, sexual violence and
sexual assault. (Further information, including contact information,
can be found on the university’s website at esu.edu/titleix.)
In accordance with federal and state laws, the university will not
tolerate discrimination. This policy is placed in this document in
accordance with state and federal laws including Titles VI and VII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Educational Amendments
of 1972, Sections 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Civil Rights Act of
1991 as well as all applicable federal and state executive orders.

A Note from the

Collection Coordinator
Dr. Matt Vashlishan

It marks the University’s 125th anniversary, and is also the 30th anniversary of the
Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection.
Founded in 1988, the ACMJC has served students, scholars, researchers, musicians,
historians, and the general public jazz aficionados for 30 years. The worldwide
readership of The Note has expanded to over 2000 individuals, including several
hundred international readers. The jazz collection area has expanded from the
basement shelf area to a new Jazz Lounge on the first floor of Kemp Library with a
24-hour slide show and jazz artwork/memorabilia on display.
The ACMJC receives annual gifts in the form of physical and monetary donations.
These generous gifts given by our readers of “The Note” and supporters of the
ACMJC have kept it going through three decades. Thank you!

Dr. Matt Vashlishan

Thanks to the leadership of the new Dean of the Library Jingfeng Xia, Ph.D., there have
been many changes around Kemp Library. Our new Library and Special Collections
Archivist Elizabeth Scott has joined the team, and is a great asset to the ACMJC.
For those of you that remember Kelly Smith, Elizabeth has taken over to help with
some of the organizational aspects of the Collection, as well as to help with online
presence. We have even discussed a future article from her, so stay tuned!
One of the most obvious changes you have probably (hopefully!) noticed by now
is the new look of The Note. It seemed fitting that along with its 30th birthday,
the ACMJC publication gets a new set of clothes. I would like to thank the ESU
administration, in particular ESU President Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D., and Brenda
Friday, Ph.D. of University Relations for helping to facilitate this transition. I think it
is appropriate to illustrate to all of you just how supportive the ESU administration is
in regards to the ACMJC, and their support is shown directly through the consistent
quality of this product. Ideal Design Solutions of East Stroudsburg, Pa. was a pleasure
to work with for this issue and really hit it out of the park.

Kemp Library Archivist
Elizabeth Scott

Don’t forget that our annual Zoot Fest has been moved to Thursday, March 29,
2018. We are planning an all-star jam with many local musicians, as well as a
saxophone feature performing some of Phil Woods’ music as well as Benny Carter
arrangements from his Further Definitions (and Additions to Further Definitions)
recording from 1966. Zoot Fest will be held in the Cecilia S. Cohen Recital Hall of the
Fine and Performing Arts Center at ESU. Afterwards the Deer Head Inn will be open
for a jam session.
Bob and Sally Dorough
at the ACMJC Booth 1988 COTA Festival

For any information regarding ESU jazz concerts and events on campus,
remember to visit www.esu.edu/jazzatesu. Here’s to another 30 years! n

fall/winter 2018 | the note | 3

From the bridge

By Su Terry

GET LOST

I used to do a lot of what we call “club dates,” East Coast lingo
for events such as weddings, bar mitzvahs and dinner dances.
(On the West Coast they are called “casuals.”) We had a roster
of regular cats, great musicians all, so the musical part of the
gig was cool. What wasn’t cool was trying to find your way
back onto the Sprain Brook Parkway after doing a private party
at someone’s house in the wilds of Westchester County, for
instance. I remember it well: stumbling out to the car in the
pitch dark and assuming the position: left hand on steering
wheel, right hand gripping a small piece of paper with the
directions to the gig. Now, of course, you are trying to follow
them backwards (let’s see, before I made a right onto Cypress,
so now I have to make a left onto Maple…) in order to get home.
There was no such thing as a consumer GPS back then. Maybe
if I’d had one, I would have stayed with that band awhile longer.
On the other hand, even the excellent navigation program on
my iPhone did not save me last year in Berlin. The gig was at
the Zig Zag Club on Hauptstraße. Since I had already gotten to
several other gigs using the iPhone, I figured I could get to this
one as well. I put in the address of the club, and was happily
surprised to see I could begin the journey at the U Bahn station
that was directly in front of my lodgings. After making two train
connections, I disembarked at the stop which seemed closest
to the little red dot on my phone that indicated my destination.
I began to walk down the sidewalk, schlepping my horns in the
stifling May heat. There were no trees. In fact, there wasn’t much
of anything except a bunch of dilapidated pre-war buildings on
either side of the train tracks. The whole scene was straight out
of the erstwhile East Berlin, which may have lost the directional
part of its name, but not the ambiance.
Finally I reached the building that displayed the address of the
Zig Zag club. Except it didn’t say Zig Zag Club, and all the doors
were locked. Out came the iPhone, this time to give a call to
pianist Uri Gincel, the bandleader. Shortly we determined
that I was not only in the wrong part of town, but also I had
traveled rather far in a direction that was diametrically opposed
to that of the club, which was actually situated in a bustling,
trendy neighborhood near Innsbrucker Platz. In my zeal to be
independent, I had forgotten that “Hauptstraße” means “Main
Street” and, just like New York, there is a Main Street in every
borough.
“Take a taxi,” said Uri. “I can’t,” I replied, “there aren’t any.”
He had to send a taxi from Friedenau, it took forever and
cost almost $50. When I arrived the band was rehearsing. I
recognized the changes as Sunny Side of the Street so at least I
could jump onstage and take a solo before they wrapped up the
sound check. But I made the gig.
4 | the note | fall/winter 2018

Those who’ve read my book “Inside the Mind of a Musician”
may recall a couple of getting lost stories from the book:
I was in Toronto to give a presentation at the International
Association of Jazz Educators. It seemed like a nice city but I
wasn’t getting to see much of it, at least not on purpose.
The man at the hotel front desk assured me that the Convention
Center was very close by. I walked out the door with his
directions in hand, but didn’t see anything that looked like the
Convention Center.
I go into a building and ask, and the guy says, “Oh, it’s right
across the street.” I go across the street and ask if this is the
Convention Center, and this guy also says, “No, but it’s right
across the street,” only he’s pointing in the opposite direction.
I go where he says, and again someone says, “It’s right across
the street” and points me in yet another direction.
This happens seven or eight times, only about halfway into it, it
starts to get a little more complicated:
“Go down those steps and follow the walkway, and it’s right
across the street.”
“Go through that building to the end, follow the walkway,
go around to the right and down those steps, and it’s right
across the street.”
My amazing powers of deduction were leading me to believe
I might be getting further away from the Convention Center. I
don’t remember how I finally found it.
When I walked back to the hotel with people who knew where
it was, it was only four blocks away. I took a good look at the
entrance to the Convention Center before I left so I would be
sure to recognize it the following day.
If I might make a small suggestion to the Toronto city planners:
perhaps the Metro-Toronto Convention Center could have
a sign placed on it that says something like, “Metro-Toronto
Convention Center.”
But there was a Timothy’s Coffee right on the corner, so I was
cool. As long as I didn’t pull a “Margot.” She got lost in Tokyo
by trying to use a ubiquitous fast food chain as the landmark
back to her hotel. She was rescued by the attentive staff at the
distant hotel where she ended up after wandering the streets of
Tokyo for hours, when they made several phone calls evidently
asking if anyone was missing a gringa from New York.
Well, at least they speak English in Toronto.
I used to work for an organization called Music Outreach which
sent trios to do school presentations. My group was led by the
fabulous guitarist Mike Coon, and our drummer was the late
Brian Grice, known for his work with the Count Basie Orchestra,
Savion Glover and Eartha Kitt, among others. We would do
shows in all five boroughs of New York City, which is how I
learned to navigate around the more obscure parts of Queens,
the Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island. Often I would pick up
Brian because we both lived in Brooklyn, and we would listen

to Phil Schaap’s radio show Bird Flight on WKCR on the way. But since
Brian would always be smoking a joint, he wasn’t all that much help as
a co-pilot.
One day we had to go to Boondocks Central, otherwise known as
Mendham, N.J. A woman from the school office had given me directions
the previous day. They were the type of directions that included
superfluous landmarks and other unnecessary information. You know
you’re in trouble when halfway through they say “I know this sounds
confusing, but…” Oh, and at a certain point, they go back to about a
quarter of the way through and embellish it, with much more detail,
so that when you’re driving and trying to follow the directions, you’re
not totally sure where the overlap is. Is this the same right turn as two
sentences ago?
Forget about street names. It was more like, “Well, go down the road a
ways, and when you see the dog lying in front of the brown house, turn
right.”
“What if the dog’s not there?”
“You STILL turn right.”
Somehow we got there. Chalk it up to experience, I guess–and we
won’t go into too much detail about the time I was late to a gig IN MY
HOMETOWN of Hartford, Conn. because after exiting for a Dunkin
Donuts moment I got back on the highway going west instead of east.
My group was supposed to open for Clark Terry at Monday Night Jazz
in Bushnell Park, and Clark ended up opening for me instead. But that’s
okay, because the prior year I had played a festival in Europe which Clark
was also on and I did him a solid. (We’re not related, by the way, but he
called me “Sis.”)
Anyone who knew Clark knows he had countless admirers, many of them
female. In my hotel room at the aforementioned festival, I became the
unintended recipient of several notes slipped under my door by some
ardent fans who had mistaken my room for Clark’s. (I duly delivered all
the notes to him the next day.)
But I can never repay Brother Clark for all the great jokes he told me over
the years, many of which I passed on to Phil Woods, a connoisseur of
comedy if ever there was one.
If I can presume to give any advice to my younger colleagues–advice
gleaned from years on the road–it’s this: if you have to get lost, do it with
someone who has a good sense of humor. n

Su Terry
Photo by James Richard Kao

New dition!
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“A delight to read: bites of life from the quirky, zany mind of Su Terry. Learned (two syllables there)
and well-traveled, Su has THE BIG PICTURE!” - Bob Dorough

(Don’t Mess with Mister T!)

Stanley Turrentine - ESU 1996
Photos by Larry Fisher

The Baddest
Turrentine

By Patrick Dorian, ESU Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Music
Stanley Turrentine (April 5, 1934 -September 12, 2000), one of
the most recognizable tenor sax voices in jazz history, was born
and raised in Pittsburgh’s historic Hill District, the cultural center
of black life in Steel City and a major mecca of jazz. He grew up
engaging many of the city’s iconic jazz musicians, eventually
becoming one of them, earning his place in Pittsburgh’s jazz
history (along with Art Blakey, Ray Brown, Kenny Clarke, Billy
Eckstine, Roy Eldridge, Erroll Garner, Earl Hines, Ahmad Jamal,
Eddie Jefferson, Henry Mancini, Billy May, Sammy Nestico,
Horace Parlan, Dakota Staton, Billy Strayhorn, Tommy Turrentine
(Stan’s older brother), and Mary Lou Williams--whew!).
I started communicating with “The Sugar Man” in late 1995 and
our first meeting was at the IAJE Conference in Atlanta in January
1996, where he handed me several arrangements to rehearse with
the University Jazz Ensemble (UJE). Five of those arrangements
were by the great Oliver Nelson from Stan’s Joyride album on the
Blue Note label, recorded April 14, 1965. I ordered the CD rerelease of the album to play for the students for performance
preparation. The day that I received it, I had to go directly to a
COTA jazz festival meeting at the Deer Head Inn and happened
to sit next to Phil Woods. I showed it to him and asked if he knew
the album. He shook his head and said yes. Upon opening the
CD, I saw that Phil played lead alto and clarinet on it. No surprise
there! (Other visitors to ESU over the decades on the recording
included Clark Terry and Jerry Dodgion.)
The students and I rehearsed the arrangements for the better part
of three months. Stanley and his wife Judith drove from their home
near Washington, DC, on April 13, 1996, to ESU. We got them
checked in at the Hillside Inn, where they met Judge and Mama
Murray. Stan and I drove the back roads to ESU. I showed him
Worthington Hall in Shawnee-on-Delaware and told him about Fred
Waring’s national radio broadcasts from there, as well as telling him
about the Delaware Water Gap jazz scene. He expressed sincere
interest about the area legacy. We arrived for rehearsal with the
UJE and the band was ready! Stan was exuberant, complimentary
toward the group, and very pleased with how everything was
shaping up. To have Stan performing several of the Joyride
arrangements with us was special. While Stan improvised on one
of them, I bent over to our sax section and said, “Whoever this
guy is, he really sounds like Stanley Turrentine!” His lecture to my
students and the community is transcribed in this issue. I hope
you’ll feel his personal warmth and the spiritual-like presentation
that we felt. A gentleman in attendance was Stan’s age and also
6 | the note | fall/winter 2018

from Pittsburgh. When he sensed that Stan was “testifying” in
a “preachifying” kind of way, he verbalized soft “responses,”
answering Stan’s occasional “calls.” Stan’s reverence for his
family, his hometown, his mentors, his music, and his religion
were expressed strikingly.
Dinner at the Hillside Inn followed. Mama Murray didn’t
disappoint with her special Hawaiian chicken and those
incredible ribs! Stan and Judith were having quite the time and
appreciated the gentle vibe at the Inn. We worked our way over
to the concert. Stanley’s smile as he entered the stage set the
atmosphere impeccably for the standing-room-only crowd.
We really felt like we were in for a “joyride” and the entire
evening was a smash. His comments to the audience were
humorous and he made a kind and well-deserved testimony
to the UJE. As the heading of this essay references the title
of a 1974 compilation album of his CTI works followed by the
title of a Marvin Gaye song that Stan recorded in March 1973,
I feel that ESU and the community experienced “The Baddest
Mister T.,” and it doesn’t get any better than that! A few days
after the event, I received an elegant and classy thank you
note from Judith outlining several points that impressed Stan
and her about their ESU experience. I still have that note!
In spring 1998, the UJE performed at the University of
Louisville Jazz Festival where Stan was the featured performer.
He and I spoke for a few minutes and he asked how the band
was doing. I told him that they were outside on the bus, so
he walked with me, stepped on the bus, and gave an uplifting
greeting to all of the students. Such a class act! Later that year
I was with Phil Woods on Phil’s big band summer European
tour in Bayonne, France, and spent some time at breakfast
with Judith and Stan in the hotel. Clark Terry was also one of
the featured performers.
In September 2000, while preparing for the last night of a weeklong performance in New York at the Blue Note, Stan suffered
a stroke and died two days later. Because of his stature, his
performance activity that year, and his seeming lack of illness,
his sudden departure sent shock waves throughout the jazz
world. I recently spoke to Judith. After 18 years in the DC area,
she’s moved south to warmer climes and is doing very well.
Perhaps Stanley’s Pittsburgh-native colleague Ray Brown said
it best in downbeat magazine: “I’m not sure what I’ll miss
most about him. He was much like his sound – big, warm and
friendly.” This aligns perfectly with our ESU experience with
him as I think, “Brother & sisters, may I get an AMEN?!” n

Photos by Larry Fisher

Stanley Turrentine
Photo by Ching Ming

My Life in Music
Lecture and Q & A

By Stanley Turrentine

East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania
Saturday, April 13, 1996 – 3:15 p.m.

Patrick Dorian: I’d like to thank
everyone for joining us here in
the Cohen Recital Hall at ESU this
afternoon to hear Stanley Turrentine
speak and I’d like to remind you that
he’ll be performing a concert with
our University Jazz Ensemble here
tonight at 8 p.m. Doors will be open
at 7:15 and please try to get here that
early because we’re armed for bear
and the bears will be here! So please
join us as early as you can as it will be
worth your while. It’s a great pleasure
to introduce Stanley Turrentine to talk
about anything he wants! (audience
applauses)
Stanley Turrentine: Thank you,
Pat, and I’m glad to be here to talk
about music and its part in my life. I
didn’t have the opportunity to go to a
school as great as this one to get my
education. I got on-the-job training. I
left home when I finished high school
and went on the road with a blues
band led by guitarist Lowell Fulson.
The piano player and conductor
was a blind man by the name of
Ray Charles. So we left my home in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and headed
straight down south and I got a lot
of different kinds of education with
this on-the-job training. I’d run into
people like Buddy Johnson, and as a
matter of fact, we’re playing one of
his songs tonight [I Wonder Where
Our Love Has Gone]. Also B.B. King.
When we played certain spots like
tobacco warehouses, they had one
rope separating the crowd, with
blacks dancing on one side and whites
dancing on the other. I couldn’t figure
it out. I thought, “They’re all dancing
to the same music. Why are they
separated?” Now that was just the
way it was at the time.
We traveled on this raggedy bus, a
Flxible bus, which was held together
by chewing gum and wire (laughs) that
broke down constantly. We used to
do 500 miles a day and one-nighters.
I remember when we did 30 straight
one-nighters in a row consisting
of [traveling] 500 miles a day.
fall/winter 2018 | the note | 7

Stanley Turrentine - 1996 ESU Concert
Photo by Walter Bredel

We’d play a gig, jump on the bus dirty
and unshaven, and we were taking
“bird baths” [washing oneself in a
sink because of segregation] because
everything was separated! Back in those
days we couldn’t go into a restaurant to
eat food. If we wanted to eat, we had
to go to the back of the restaurant to a
window. They didn’t have a menu. They
gave us whatever they wanted to give
us and we had to pay for it, too.
All those things… I’m leading up to
this… in fact, that was a part of me
developing and today I feel that all those
things are a part of what I’m about.
No malice or nothing, it’s just the
way it was because music is the
number one thing in my life and God
has made it possible for me to do
nothing else. I never had a job to do
anything else but to play music all my
life and I don’t regret a minute of it.
Of course, I did a lot of stupid things.
It’s not the glamour. What we love is
doing what we do on the bandstand,
but getting to that bandstand is a whole
other thing. There are so many things
that people don’t think of… there’s
trauma, there’s strife, and I starved just
to get up there on that bandstand and
play. We went through times when they
didn’t feed us. They were hard times—
we didn’t have money because of the
fact that the promoter didn’t pay us… we
didn’t have money. We had to go to the
next gig hoping that we would get paid.
8 | the note | fall/winter 2018

Stanley watches on as students improvise - 1996 ESU Concert Photo by Walter Bredel

These are all things that happened to us. It was a constant thing; it was taken for granted.
When we’d go to our rooming house we might see Buddy Johnson’s band or B.B. King’s band
or Little Milton or all these different blues bands that we ran across. We would sit down and
have breakfast. We’d talk about if they were coming out of a town, and if we were going into
that town, they’d tell us what to be aware of and not to do this or that because literally your
life was on the line! Somebody could blow your brains out just because you’re black. I’ve seen
people (pause)… hung; they used to cut them down from the trees. I’ve seen people killed for
no reason at all. So all these things that we try to brush under the rug… these are things that
helped develop me… in spite of all these things that happened, and I saw what happened out
there, I still say that I would have played music regardless because it was my calling. I had to
learn to ask questions and find out what books to practice from. [Nat] King Cole was at a jam
session in Pittsburgh and I had enough nerve to ask him, “Mr. Cole, would you teach me how
to play Stardust?” And he said, “Sure,” and he was puffing on his cigarette—he was famous
for that. He sat down and played that dreamy verse (hums verse from Stardust). I said, “No,
Mr. Cole, I want to learn to play Stardust. I’m gonna learn Stardust here!” He said, “That IS
Stardust!” He said (laughs), “That’s the VERSE of Stardust.”
I had people that came into my life that would sit down with me and I’d ask them things and
they wouldn’t hesitate to show me. They’d ask me, “What are you practicing? What scales
have you been practicing?” Eventually we’d talk about modes and about being on the gig.
During that time we had jam sessions and I was always finding the jam sessions all across the
country—like in San Francisco they had [Jimbo’s] Bop City [in the Fillmore section from 1950
to 1965] where guys would be jamming from midnight to daybreak and even later than that!
I’ve seen even in my hometown in Pittsburgh there was an old club called The Musicians
Club [on the second floor of the Musicians Union local 471 headquarters] where everybody
came by. By the way, that’s where I met Nat King Cole who taught me Stardust. Charlie
Parker used to come play there… everybody! Gene Ammons, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn…
All the guys would come there and jam after they finished their gig downtown. And I would
be right there… I was about thirteen or fourteen years old, and I would sneak in there and
watch Art Tatum play… Erroll Garner play… King Cole… oh, just everybody… Dizzy Gillespie,
Illinois Jacquet—all of these guys… as a matter of fact, Illinois Jacquet was my mentor.
I used to go there and wear him to death, I just admired him so much. It had gotten to the
point where he’d come into town, I’d meet the bus he was on, and I’d just bug him and say,
“How do you do this? Just answer the question.” Then it got to the point where he just knew
me, and he’d go, “C’mon, Junior.” He used to take me around and he used to sit me in the
corner and I’d just sit down and learn bad habits (laughs). Oh God! All in all, I don’t regret it
because I was really interested in girls. I’d see all these guys in the band would get all these fine
chicks, and that’s one of the things that kept me going, I must admit (laughs).

I had the pleasure of later on in my life of being around fantastic musicians like Herbie Hancock,
Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter, George Benson; we were on the CTI record label together [Stan
recorded for CTI from 1970 to 1973] and we’d exchange and play on each other’s record
dates. Recording with [Eumir] Deodato at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio [Englewood Cliffs, NJ]
was the first time that I got to play with a Brazilian orchestra playing Brazilian music. And we
couldn’t even speak to one another, but when we got out there and played, it was fantastic!
It’s wonderful—I think it’s one of the finest records that I’ve made and it’s called “Salt Song”
on CTI [July 7 & 13, 1971].
Those things helped me to develop, just being able to ask questions because I had it
in my heart to play and that was the most important thing. I’ve been doing this stuff
for forty years in all kinds of different situations. In forty minutes I can’t tell you all of
the things that I’ve been through. It wasn’t always bad, and most of the time it was
good. I accepted what was happening, and through this music that I play nowadays it’s
about your experience. I just turned to be a senior citizen last year and I stayed with
it and it’s paid off. I feel definitely great about the fact that the school here and the
schools all over the country call me to express and to hear my music. That’s quite an
accomplishment for where I came from. I come from the most humble community and
they say that it can’t be done! And I said, “It could be regardless of all the hard things,”
and that’s why I try to tell everybody that whatever you have in mind to do, regardless
of whether it’s music or architecture or computers… that you must love it. I have no
qualms about anything that happened. I was one of the fortunate ones; I’m the one
guy that can sit here and talk about it, to tell you about what I do, it’s a God-given gift.
The fact that I’m here before you now is a truly meaningful thing and I can tell you that God
has helped me. I think I’m considered one of the foremost in my field through time and it’s
because of all the experiences that I went through. I hope I’m not saying this to boast—
well I’m boasting—I feel that music can bring us all together and I try to play something
from my experiences, which is the Blues. And that’s where this music—ALL popular music
in this world, I think—started from the blues. We’ve got to remember that. A lot of the
computers are changing music around. I have an IBM computer at home and I’m learning
to enhance what’s happening musically today.

We forget about these guys who
contributed so much to this music

Basically I started being raised next to a Baptist church listening to the music. [In an
interview conducted in November 1999 by Herb Boyd for downbeat, Stan said that
his family “lived right next door to one of those Sanctified or Holy Roller churches
and they would open the doors, and you could hear the music booming all over the
neighborhood. I used to hear them playing {music} all the time, the tambourines going
yakety, yakety… that music had a strong influence on my playing”; however, he also
stated that his family attended another church to worship.] I think we should try to
listen to other kinds of music. The most popular guys like Kenny G didn’t start the
music. I mean, he’s very good, he’s popular, he’s got all these computers and stuff
playing the parts and I can’t put him down as he sells millions of albums a year. Charlie
Parker didn’t sell a lot; Dexter Gordon didn’t; Lester Young didn’t; Gene Ammons didn’t;
Sonny Stitt didn’t; Dexter Gordon didn’t. We forget about these guys who contributed
so much to this music like Al Cohn and Zoot Sims and Stan Getz and all of these guys…
these cats are gone and contributed so much to this music.
And I am sick and tired of people talking about here is where the music began. Kenny
G… I hear him play—He’s doing great! He’s a commodity and he’s selling. But we can’t
dare forget the cats like Jug [Ammons], Lucky Thompson, Don Byas, and Gerry Mulligan,
who just died [on January 20, 1996]. All these guys contributed something to this music,
so why should we discard these cats and say, “Hey, it’s over! They’re over with”?
And I don’t mean to sound too bitter (soft chuckle), but you know that’s one of the things

that’s been on my mind because we
should listen to Bach and Schubert…
listen to Art Tatum or listen to Sonny
Stitt, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie—
these are my main musicians. The
point is we can’t forget these people
who contributed to this music. We
cannot forget the blues all through
Ray Charles and Little Milton and
Joe Turner and all these guys who
started this music.… We cannot just
say, “Hey, that’s over with.” It’s not
over with; it’ll never be other with; I
can’t imagine a world without music
and these are the roots of the music.
Without the roots, nothing works.
And I’d like to say thank you for
having me and I’m sure we will have
fun tonight. Are there any questions?
Anybody? The band, what about you?
Dr. Larry Fisher: I’m not afraid to
ask you a question (LF laughs). All of
these name musicians that you’ve
worked with from time to time,
do you have any favorite stories
about any of them that you can tell
us humorous or otherwise… any
favorites that you have?
Stanley Turrentine: I don’t think
it’s something I can say in public…
(audience laughs)
Dr. Larry Fisher: Oh, you can tell us.
Stanley Turrentine: Most of
the guys like my friend Freddie
Hubbard… Freddie, he is my good
friend in recording and we’ve
worked together a lot; he’s a funny
guy. He enjoys life. He likes to do
everything. Especially with the, you
know, the women (chuckle), Man, I
could tell some stories, man, about
Freddie, like he’d miss gigs and
stuff and—well, that was part of
a… (audience laughs). Are there any
more questions ’cause I wanna get
out of this one! (audience laughs and
Stanley chuckles). [Freddie Hubbard
was the lecturer and guest soloist
with the University Jazz Ensemble at
ESU in April 1992. See the Winter/
Spring 2012 issue of The Note to
read a transcription of his lecture]
fall/winter 2018 | the note | 9

The computer does everything perfect.

What's perfect? Not me.

Audience Member #2: Did you still find that there are still jam sessions?

Stanley Turrentine: Not really, not as much as there used to be—as a matter of fact,
I think I learned to play in jam sessions in saloons. I think that’s one of the things that
taught me how to play because I didn’t go home and practice out of books; I had the
opportunity to go to all these jam sessions and develop what I was practicing. They don’t
have that many as they used to because it’s a different time. They don’t have as many
clubs as they used to. Most of the clubs were in the inner city in the neighborhoods
and all the music is now moved downtown. In New York, for instance, all the music is
in the [Greenwich] Village, like at the Blue Note and the [Village] Vanguard; we used
to work uptown at Minton’s [Playhouse] and it’s no longer there. That’s happening all
over the country.
Audience member #3: Could you talk about technology and its effect on jazz?
Stanley Turrentine: Some people are taking this technology and it just makes them
lazy. You know, because you’ve got computer software that when you write a song, it’ll
give you variations of the song. So you’re not thinking and not using what’s inside… I’m
talking about your feelings. When you get to the point when you don’t use your feelings
or the roots of all of this, if you don’t use that technology to enhance what is already
there and you just take it and use technology, what good is it? We’re going to be a state of
robots. How do you bend a note? I bet a computer can’t bend one. No! There’s a certain
feeling that you play; you have to have a certain amount of feeling and experience.
That computer does everything perfect. What’s perfect? Not me. So, I think that’s a good
question because I think we can work this technology together and we don’t have to
RELY on this technology and forget about what we already have naturally that God has
given us to do. Anybody else?
Audience member #4: You played with your brother Tommy?
Stanley Turrentine: Oh yes, Tommy.
Audience member #4 (continues): You don’t play with him anymore?
Stanley Turrentine: Well, Tommy quit playing. He’s doing a lot of writing and I’m
recording several of his tunes. As a matter of fact, I recorded one of his recently, a song
called “June Bug” [June 1993]. [Tommy Turrentine: b. April 22, 1928, d. May 15, 1997]
Patrick Dorian: Is it still possible to get some of the recordings that you did with the Earl
Bostic band [Earl Bostic: b. 1913 – d. 1965]
Stanley Turrentine: I’m sure there is, but I’m the last to know when they do digital
masterings on the older recordings to make CDs. So we musicians are the last persons
to know. The only way I find out that my records are now on CDs is when I do a concert
or seminar or something like that, kids come up and like, “Hey, I got your latest album!”
And I look at the album and it’s something that I did in 1960 (audience laughs). And that’s
the only way I know. They are just selling these records all over the world and we don’t
even get a copy of it. [At age 18 or 19, Stanley took over the tenor saxophone chair in Earl
Bostic’s band shortly after John Coltrane departed in late 1952. Stan recorded 22 tracks
with Bostic in a 12-month period from June 6, 1953 {age 19} through May 27, 1954 in Los
Angeles and Cincinnati. His brother Tommy performed on trumpet on 13 of these tracks
and the legendary trumpeter Blue Mitchell {age 23} performed on all 22 of the tracks.
Stanley probably left the Bostic aggregation sometime in mid-1954 and was replaced by
the iconic Benny Golson {age 25}, who then recorded over 25 tracks with Bostic through
April 1956. Bostic recorded from 1939 through 1965. As of late 2017 there are several
dozen Bostic compilations available on CD.]
10 | the note | fall/winter 2018

Walter Bredel (photographer for the
event): You don’t have the rights or
you sold the rights somehow?
Stanley Turrentine: No. You’ve got
to remember during those times there
was no such thing as a CD. Technology
was not there. We didn’t know. It was
only vinyl. We were signing contracts
for vinyl records because that’s the
only thing we had then, you know.
There was no technology there; we
had no idea that there would be [CDs
and technology]. So THEY found out
that there was nothing in the contract.
They got off scot-free with this. We
have a thing brought before Congress
in which we get a percentage off of
each tape that was sold and I hope
that happens for us before Congress.
So we didn’t even know anything
about the CDs and cassettes and all
that stuff back when we were signing
contracts in the ’50s and ’60s.
Patrick Dorian: One of the things
that you are famous for is your sound.
Right now are you planning to use the
same equipment you’ve always used
such as your mouthpiece?
Stanley Turrentine: No… I’m recently
trying out a new saxophone and a
new mouthpiece, by the way, and I’m
thinking of endorsing them. Also, I’m
thinking about a German company
that makes a great horn: Keilwerth. So,
we’ll see what happens. Next? Yes sir?
Audience member #7: Can you tell
us a little more about your family
background and if others were musical?
Stanley Turrentine: Okay. Well, I come
from a musical family and music was
our form of entertainment. My father
[a saxophonist with Al Cooper’s Savoy
Sultans] decided that he didn’t want to
travel anymore because he wanted to
raise his five kids. My mother played
piano, my brother, someone here
mentioned Tommy, played trumpet; I
have another brother, deceased now,
who played drums; I had a sister who
played violin; I had another sister
who played piano. My father is the
one who first put the saxophone
in my hand [a 1937 Buescher]. He
had a unique way of teaching me.

My lesson would be one note at a
time and chromatically. He put me in
a corner and said that would be my
lesson, playing long tones. He would
always ask me as I was standing in the
corner, “Stanley, did you hear it?” For
a long time I couldn’t figure it out. I
said, “Dad, it seems to me that I can’t
help but hear it. I’m standing in this
corner and I’m playing!” (audience
and Stanley laugh). But he was
teaching me how I could put certain
air into the horn and get a different
sound. I could attack that note again
and get another type of sound. I
could put less air or more into it
using just one note and I was learning
how many different things you could
do with that one note. Another
thing that he was teaching me was
ear training. He was giving me ear
training. Was I playing this note in
tune, you know? I wanted to play
some licks I heard on the radio and
stuff (audience chuckles) and he said,
“When I turn that corner coming to
the house, I better hear you playing
that one note!” (audience and Stanley
laugh). And, you know, I certainly
am thankful for that. He was really
patient with me. My brother played

trumpet and he went on to play with Count Basie and George Hudson [the George
Hudson Orchestra out of St. Louis] and he did work with Dizzy Gillespie for a long time.
The first gig I ever had, I was twelve years old and it was in a place called Perry Bar, and
Tommy would hire me because he didn’t have to pay me (audience chuckles). So, I’m
standing out there and he was teaching me all of these songs and we would be playing
Charlie Parker’s tunes, Dizzy Gillespie’s, Thelonious Monk’s stuff… So there were a lot of
things that I thank Tommy for. Yes, sir?
Audience member #8: I really like your album; you look pretty good with those
bell-bottom white pants on.
Stanley Turrentine: Oh yeah, oh, I had knickers on some albums (audience laughs,
Stanley laughs). Yeah.
Audience member #8 (continues): All right, we grew up in the same old town. How
about Crawford Grill?
Stanley Turrentine: Crawford Grill!
Audience member #8 (continues): We were born and raised in a smoky city. There is
no smoke there now, but yet it’s still called the Smoky City. Like you were saying, I know
some of the younger people who came up, and I can remember on Friday or Saturday
nights every bar had music and they would always have a piano player and a saxophone
player. And if you would go across the street, there was always a trumpet player, a piano
player. There was always kids listening to music all night and all weekend, but now I can
say it’s not there anymore for our younger generation and sorta died out. I’m President
of the AARP [?]; see if you can come by and we’ll have you on.
Stanley Turrentine: Oh, all right. Okay, hey, hey, I’mma gonna take you up on that. But
you know what? It’s so beautiful that there are schools like this that are introducing guys
like me to the public. Now I’d like to thank Pat again for helping and Larry for bringing me
here, trying to keep this music going, because the past is still important—there’s still a lot
of history and these guys are really, really bringing it to the forefront, and I want to thank
you two guys very much for having me here.
Patrick Dorian: We thank you. (applause)

Stanley Turrentine playing with the University Jazz Ensemble - 1996 ESU Concert
Photo by Walter Bredel

Stanley Turrentine: Yeah, you know,
getting back to my family (chuckles),
I’d like to talk about my mother and
father who are deceased. We didn’t
have that much money and we
entertained ourselves by listening to
the radio and naming bands. We used
to sit down and listen to station KDKA
and hear Woody Herman’s band and
Count Basie’s and all these guys on
the radio and—and we would have a
quiz: Who’s playing saxophone? Who’s
playing trumpet? Who’s soloing on this
particular tune? And my father would
always sit down and give me albums,
from Chu Berry, Coleman Hawkins, Don
Byas—all these guys—and he would
give me quizzes on what they were
playing. He would say, “Play the bridge
of “Body and Soul.” And I would have
to practice that. I didn’t know what
question he was going to ask me [at
our next learning session]… or, “Play
‘Lester Leaps In’ ” (slight chuckle). You
know, all these kinds of things. So we
just had a lot of fun, you know. He used
to point to my sister and ask all kinds
of things. We entertained ourselves
mostly and he took me around to the
Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts and I
heard Illinois Jacquet and… Flip Phillips!
(claps his hands once). Ray Brown
used to deliver the [weekly Pittsburgh
Courier] paper to our house! I used to
walk home and Ahmad Jamal would be
practicing on our piano. Eddie Safranski
used to come by and jam with my
brother and also Dodo Marmaroso. I
used to just run into these guys all the
time. Art Blakey, Kenny Clarke, Ray
Brown… Linton Garner, Erroll Garner’s
brother, used to come down to the
house and play all the time, so I was just
really getting to meet so many great
musicians all my life. Consequently, that
was my form of learning.

Stanley Turrentine Photo by Walter Bredel

all the roots of all the popular music
that you hear today; it all began with jazz

I used to try to play along with [recorded] solos by people like Coleman Hawkins and Lester
Young and Dexter Gordon and I’d get frustrated and I’d just want to take that horn and
throw it up against the wall and forgot it. I remember my father telling me, “Sit down, son.
I want to tell you something. I have yet to hear a musician who can play everything!” And
that’s true, because there is so MUCH music—there is SO much music that a lifetime isn’t
enough time to learn it all. If you think about it, a lifetime is not enough time. So I don’t
want us to forget the past. Also, I don’t want us to forget the present. But, you know, we
should just try to incorporate all these things and all these experiences that even Kenny G
has. We could incorporate all this stuff together and see if we can make this world a whole
better place. I don’t think there’s a better way to do that than by playing music. I’ve played
all over this world and it seems to make everybody all over the world happy.
Audience member #9: What is the state of jazz at this point in time? Will it become
popular again?
Stanley Turrentine: (chuckles) Here we go again! I hear this question that people want
to know when jazz is coming back. I’ve been hearing this for a long time. Well, you
know, I really don’t know where it’s been! I don’t know; I mean it’s sustained me as far
as I’m concerned. I’m doing a concert with Jimmy Smith in June or July and he’s still
going. I don’t know where this music is—I think, “How do they gauge where jazz is?”
If you’re talking about materially, we’ve always been on the bottom of the totem pole
as far as making money or being successful. They don’t even have to check. You know,
they had an event for jazz at the White House and they had Aretha Franklin, David
Sanborn, and all of these other various people… they had a very good program and it
was shown on TV. In the middle of Ron Carter’s solo, when it got to the jazz portion, it
went to commercial! (chuckles). Heh, you know? What I’m saying is this: we don’t get
the respect that the other forms of music get because jazz is not a money-making thing;
it’s all money! We contributed all the roots of all the popular music that you hear today;
it all began with jazz.
Audience member #10: Are there any young musicians who impress you?
Stanley Turrentine: Oh yeah, no doubt! There are a lot of young cats that are really
coming on, like Muhammed Jackson [Stan might have been referring to drummer Ali
(Muhammed) Jackson, Jr. (b. 1976), who is the son of bassist Ali Jackson, Sr.]. Are there
any more questions?
Patrick Dorian: Stan, I think we need to wrap it up at this point…
Stanley Turrentine: Oh!
Patrick Dorian: …and I think your statement about your family and family support is
a wonderful message during the sorry state that we’re sometimes in this country. Your
forty-five minutes here is worth three hours of a lot of other people, so thank you very
much for speaking to us.
Stanley Turrentine: Thank you so much! (enthusiastic applause)

Stanley applauding the band - 1996 ESU Concert Photo by Walter Bredel

n

'

Jazz: America s Original Remix
By T Storm Heter

We live in the era of the remix.

Cut and paste technology and DJ culture have changed how repetition
functions in music and art. So argues cultural theorist Eduardo Navas in Remix Theory: The
Aesthetics of Sampling (2012). Navas is a Los Angeles DJ and percussionist by background, an art historian
by training, and now works as professor of digital humanities at Penn State. Recently Navas asked me to
write an article on “Jazz and Remix” for a new volume he was co-editing. I happily accepted.

As a drummer I employ remix technologies
daily in my practice studio, and when
I perform live. But I don’t have fancy
electronics with looping pedals. I use the
Jazz culture version of remix technology:
my memory of the licks, riffs, grooves, and
feels of other drummers.
As a child of a Jazz musicians, I grew up
in a house where every Friday brought
an eclectic jam, determined only by who
showed up on what instrument and with
what new record to listen to. The record
went on the turntable. A bottle of wine
and a few joints were passed around.
Each musician listened and learned their
part. The cut would keep spinning as long
as needed. Eventually the record went off
and the band had a tune to play with for
the rest of the night.
Listening parties have been a staple of
Jazz musicianship since the beginning.
In the 1920s Jazz spread across black
communities in the American south.
African-Americans bought records at
double the rate of their peers. Musicians
shared their knowledge by grabbing
phrases and passages from records, then
incorporating them into performances. To
learn difficult passages from a record, they
picked up the needles of their turntables
and created loops. By focusing on one
short phrase at a time, and after intense
listening, musicians could copy even the
hardest riffs. Be-bop records, with their
blazing tempos and monstrously technical
phrases were one outgrowth of the
turntable’s influence in Jazz. Musicians
could even slow down turntables by softly
placing a thumb on the table. Tricky phrases

could be heard at reasonable tempos. This
primitive method of remixing—looping
and tempo alteration—would be used for
generations.
The pianist Hal Galper tells the story of
being a student at conservatory and
having barely enough money for the
latest records. One student would buy
the disk and ten friends would gather
around. After a bit of passive listening,
they would cue up a solo, with all the
students singing along.
While Jazz musicians have used records
to learn licks since the 1920s, the true
advent of remix was the DJs culture of
the of 1970s. In the Bronx, DJ Cool Herc
noticed that live audiences danced most
passionately when he looped short
grooves from vinyl funk records. The break
beat was born. Break beat culture spread
and became the foundation of Hip-hop, in
particular, the sample-based variety.
Bands like Public Enemy and A Tribe Called
Quest pioneered sample-based Hip-hop
with its vertically dense, greasy grooves.
One cut might have as many as twenty
or thirty samples. Sometimes changed
beyond recognition, and sometimes clear
as day, the results of months of crate diving
were sped up, slowed down, repeated,
and distorted. Through these samples a
generation of musicians was introduced
to past greats like Ahmad Jamal, Mara
Whitney, and Jack Wilkins.
Like most people who grew up on Hiphop, the first time I heard drummer Bill
Goodwin was in 1993, on the cut “Sucka
Ni**a” on the epic Midnight Marauders,
the third album from A Tribe Called Quest.

I knew Bill’s lick long before I moved to
the Poconos and met him. Bill’s funky
groove was sampled from Jack Wilkin’s
Windows (1973). Tribe grabbed the lick
from the band’s cover of the Freddie
Hubbard tune “Red Clay.” It is the kind
of material crate divers lived for: a slow,
nasty funk line with space, dynamics and
most of all, a great time feel.
Recently I caught up with Bill at the Deer
Head Inn, where he long served as a
house drummer and where he now lives.
I asked him what he thought about Tribe’s
remix of Red Clay. Bill was proud to be on
the tune. He began speaking to me as a
fellow drummer, laying out some of the
rhythmic concepts he employed during
his funk period. Like most musicians
sampled by the first generation of Hiphop, Bill never got paid for his sample.
Midnight Marauders was produced just
before lawyers caught up with DJs and
forced them to “clear samples,” which
involved negotiating financially with
record companies.
Jazz and Hip-Hop are musical cousins.
Both thrive on repetition, spontaneity,
and rhythmic power. Both have a long
history with the turntable. Whereas Bebop musicians used turntables to learn
licks, Hip-hop musicians used them
to produce break beats. The way Jazz
musicians used turntables pre-figured DJ
culture by about fifty years.
T Storm Heter’s article “Jazz” is forthcoming
in Keywords in Remix Studies, (Routledge,
2018), edited by Eduardo Navas, Owen
Gallagher and xtine burrough. n
fall/winter 2018 | the note | 13

Phil Woods and his daughter Allisen with Cutie Pie
Photo by Dave Coulter

Tail Of Two Kitties
A Children’s Story for Aimee

It was a hot, humid, August day. I gazed out of the kitchen
window watching our cat, Cutie-Pie, as she lolled on the porch
rail, licking her navel, looking very much like an Indian Princess
in all of her feline glory, except for the licking of the navel thing.
She looked spiffy in her tailored gray Ann Taylor suit with a
white Calvin Klein blouse on and absolutely stunning booties
by Enzio.
“Hey Cutie! You want to come in from the heat and watch
television? Tiger Woods is playing today and I’ll rub your belly
if you like.”
“Yeah! Sure – it’s hot as hell out here!”
“Watch your language, young lady – we don’t use that kind of
talk around here!”
She sauntered in very slowly; she never rushes, ever. Our other
cat, Cinnamon Girl, was in the kitchen and Cutie attacked and
they did their caterwauling thing, an ungodly cacophony if there
ever was one – like the sounds of a pet shop on fire.
“Why do you and your sister caterwaul at each other all the
time? It’s really becoming a bit of a bore, you know.”
14 | the note | fall/winter 2018

By Phil Woods

“It is God’s will.”
“It’s God’s will? What the hell does that mean?”
“Have you never heard of the territorial imperative? That’s what
we do and it is not our fault. It is the way the good Lord made
us. And, by the way, you are no role model for nice language!”
“Oh dear! Give me a break! Come on, let’s watch Tiger Woods
play golf.”
“O.K.”
We settled onto the couch and I rubbed her belly and she bit me
with those love bites that she uses when she is really grooving.
“Ow! Why are you so rough? That hurts! Keep it up and I won’t
rub your belly anymore.”
“It is God’s will.”
“And knock off the God’s will crap or I’ll bite you and see how
you like Phil’s will.”
“Tiger is playing his ass off as usual. Is he a real tiger?”
“Well – it’s his real name, if that’s what you mean. But no – he
is not of the cat family. He is a human being, just like I am. And
there you go again with that nasty tongue!”

“Do you play golf?”
“No. I’m afraid I do not. Only computer
golf but I beat Arnold Palmer all the
time, with enough mulligans that is.”
“What’s a mulligan?”
“Never mind. Want a treat?”
“Yeah! Love one.”
I got both kitty cats a treat and a cookie
for me. Cutie eyed the cookie until I
relented and gave her a nibble. She
always prefers whatever I am eating,
from cheese to burgers or pie.
“What do you do when you take that
strangely-shaped black box and rollalong suitcase and disappear for days at
a time?”
“Why do you ask? Do you miss me?”
“I miss the belly rubs and the cookies –
you betcha!”
“Well – it is what I do for a living. The
strange black box contains a saxophone
and people pay me to play it.”
“That thing that you practice on
every couple of months? Talk about
caterwauling! And they actually pay you
to do that?”
“Yes. I am quite handsomely rewarded
for playing the sax and I travel all over
the world and stay in nice hotels and
eat in fancy restaurants. Caterwauling
indeed!”
“Really! Amazing. Could you take
Cinnamon-Girl and me with you some
time? We could caterwaul along with
you and keep you company.”
“I think not.”
“Why?”
“It is Phil’s will.”
“Touché! Tell me something, Will.”
“The name is Phil.”
“Whatever. How come you never feed
us a real meal? In fact, I rarely see you
off the couch. It’s always your lovely
wife who seems to do all the work. Jill, I
believe she’s called?”
“Yes, Jill and Phil. Why can’t you
remember our names? Well, Cutie, that
shows just how much you know. It might
look to you like I’m just sitting there, but
as I told you, I am a musician and we
are always working. Why, at this very
moment I am working on my Rondo.”

“What’s a Rondo?”
“It is a song form that goes around
and around.”
“Like me when I chase my tail?”
“Exactly like you when you chase
your tail.”
“And you get paid to write something
that goes around and around?”
“I hope to, someday.”
“Will you pay me if I can catch my tail?”
“Now you are being a silly cat. No. I will
not pay you to either chase or, miracle
of miracles, catch your tail.”
“It will be a miracle of miracles if you
ever finish that Rondo!”
“Now just hold on young lady! What
has Jill told you?”
“Enough! We’re all on to your little
Rondo caper!”
“Speaking of capers, when are you and
your sister going to bury the hatchet
and start getting along?”
“We get along.”
“You continually harass the hell out of
the poor thing. Give her a break why
don’t you? And what’s the deal with
these hairballs you guys leave all over
the rug?”
“Hey man! - I’m a cat, not a scientist.
I guess its nature’s way of telling you
that we’ve swallowed too much hair in
our quest to be squeaky clean.”
“Did you know that your saliva, when it
dries on your fur, gives many people a
dreadful allergic reaction?”
“No - I did not and I don’t care.”
“Keep up that sassy tone of voice,
missy, and I’ll lock you in the bathroom,
along with your sister, and play
the soundtrack from ‘Cats’ a few
dozen times.”
“What’s ‘Cats’?
“‘Cats’ is a Broadway musical show
composed by Andrew Lloyd Weber and
features people all dressed up as cats
–just like you and Cinnamon Girl.”
“Why?”
“Because it is a very sick world,
that’s why!”
“Do you know why Cinnamon Girl is
so uptight?”

“No - but I have the feeling you are
going to tell me.”
“In another life she was the daughter
of the Tsar Nicolas of Russia.”
“She was Marie Whatshername?
Anastasia? The one who got away when
the Reds killed the whole family?”
“That’s right Bubala.”
“How do you know this?”
“She told me so.”
“Maybe she’s a pathological liar.”
“Maybe the moon is made of green
cheese.”
“What does that mean, rondo-man?”
“You are a very strange cat – do you
know that?”
“Yeah sure – but you’re cool right?”
“I don’t spit up hairballs and leave them
for people to walk through in their bare
feet.”
“Not yet!”
“You are loaded with non-sequiturs,
my friend.”
“What’s a non-sequitur?”
“It is when you say something that
isn’t connected to anything you said
before.”
“But I’m just a kitty-cat. How many
kitty-cats do you know who can even
talk?”
“One’s enough for me.”
“I’m bored - let me back on the
porch and you can talk to the Russian
Princess. She’s probably loaded with
non-sequiturs along with hairballs
galore.”
“OK – but stick around we’re all going
bowling later.”
“You’re weird.”
“Ciao!”
“Chow? Like cat chow?”
“Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
And with that my Cutie went back
on the porch rail and licked herself
into frenzy. Cinnamon Girl got ready
to attack her and I went back to the
couch to contemplate existence and
my Rondo. I couldn’t stop whistling
the complete score of ‘Cats’! I bet the
hairballs will be flying tomorrow! n
fall/winter 2018 | the note | 15

By Phil Mosley
The last issue of “The Note” featured Deer Head Records, a
recently established and welcome venture named for the “oldest
continuously running jazz club in the country,” the Deer Head
Inn in Delaware Water Gap, Pa. Since 2013, Deer Head Records
has released eight live albums recorded at the inn, yet the album
most jazz fans worldwide associate with the Deer Head remains
Keith Jarrett’s At the Deer Head Inn (ECM, 1994).
Born in 1945 in Allentown, Pa., pianist Keith Jarrett played his
first serious gig at the Deer Head, which sits a little over 40 miles
up the road [from Allentown] to the northeast. After studying at
the Berklee School of Music in Boston, Jarrett got involved in the
putative Pocono Mountains jazz scene in the early 1960s when
he sat in sometimes with resident pianist John Coates Jr., often
playing drums or guitar. He broke through the ranks on joining
the Charles Lloyd Quartet in 1966 and soon made a name for
himself as an ingenious and fearless improviser. On September
16, 1992, Jarrett returned to play piano at the Deer Head after a
30-year absence and to help relaunch the venue after a change
of ownership. He brought with him Gary Peacock on bass and
Paul Motian replacing Jack DeJohnette, the regular drummer
in his trio; he had not played with Motian since the 1970s. The
album selected from among the night’s musical offerings consists
of six standards (“Solar,” “Basin Street Blues,” “You Don’t Know
What Love Is,” “You And The Night And The Music,” “Bye Bye
Blackbird,” and “It’s Easy To Remember”) and pianist Jaki Byard’s
bluesy composition “Chandra”.
Bill Goodwin, esteemed drummer and record producer, produced
the album; Kent Heckman, owner and operator of Red Rock
Recording in Saylorsburg, Pa., engineered it. I sat down recently
in the bucolic surroundings of Red Rock to reflect on Jarrett’s
album with Bill and Kent.
PM: How did this gig come about in the first place?
BG: It came about because of a long friendship between myself,
Keith, and Chris and Donna Soliday, who were for many years
proprietors of the Deer Head Inn and had recently taken over
from Donna’s parents, Bob and Fay Lehr. It happened that
during that summer Chris (who is a master piano tuner and
was Keith’s piano tuner for many years), Donna, my wife at
16 | the note | fall/winter 2018

the time, Mary Jane, our two small children, and I were at
a barbecue one afternoon at Keith’s house, hanging out.
There was a discussion about Chris and Donna taking over
the Deer Head, and Keith was talking about the earlier days
when he first played there as a young musician [in the early
1960s]. I met Keith when I was still living in L.A., and he was
not known at all except by people who had known him in
Boston, and I guess around here he was known by some of
the local musicians.
KH: I met him once, at the Deer Head! [laughter]
BG: I moved out to the area in 1970, and I think Keith was one of
the first people that I realized lived nearby and got in touch.
I’d been introduced to the Deer Head by Bob Dorough, and
both Keith and I used often to go [there] to hear and also sit
in. Keith would play drums, never piano, and I would play
drums, and we’d trade off sometimes, and sit in with the
great Johnny Coates Jr., who was Keith’s neighbor and lived
across the street from him in Mountain Lakes, N.J. Anyway, we
were talking about the Deer Head, this and that, and about
a week later my phone rang. It was Keith saying, “You know,
I’ve decided I’m going to play a night at the Deer Head, just a
nice send-off for Chris and Donna with the new club. It’ll be
great, get some publicity and so forth. It’s going to be really
relaxed, you know, the Deer Head’s a door gig, so there’s no
guarantee. So, I want to ask you a question: Jack DeJohnette
doesn’t want to come down from Woodstock [N.Y.] to do
a door gig, says he’s beyond all that now.” So, I’m thinking
to myself, oh, he’s going to ask me to play. And he said,
“Paul Motian’s going to play. Can he borrow your drums?”
[laughter] “Of course, Paul’s an old friend, no problem.” He
said, “You sound funny. Is everything okay?” I said, “I thought
you were going to ask me to play.” And he said, “No, I wasn’t
going to do that” [laughter]—Keith’s almost flat in the affect
department sometimes. Anyway, I said, “That’s cool.” It just
happened I was working there the night before, so my drums
were going to be there anyway. And I was thinking, you
know, it’d be interesting if we could record it. So, I called
him back. “What would you think about it if I got my friend
to come—he’s a professional engineer—and record the
performance?” He said, “Well, as long as it’s no trouble,
you’re not in the way, and it’s not going to be a big deal.” I
said, “No, you’d never know we were there. It’ll all be very
subtle.” I called Kent and said, “Hey, do you want to record
Keith Jarrett at the Deer Head for no money?” He agreed.
I think you told me you hadn’t done much live recording.
KH: I hadn’t done any! That was my first live recording.
BG: How about it! That was the genesis. We recorded after
that with Katchie Cartwright [Katchie Cartwright Quintet,
Live! At the Deer Head Inn, Harriton Carved Wax, 1994], an
excellent singer, who grew up around here, and her band,
which I also played in. Kent did that job as well. Meanwhile,
we’d given all of the tapes to Keith—except our copies—as
a present to him, we told him. He called me after a while,
said he really liked the way they sounded, and was going to
play them for Manfred Eicher, because if he played them at

the right time for Manfred, he probably would want to put it
out. Because that’s the way Manfred is—you know, he hears
something and gets enthusiastic. He doesn’t always initiate
everything he does. Keith had an autonomous relationship
with Manfred. He was one of the first really big artistes on
ECM. The Cologne concert [Köln Concert, 1975] still sells to
this day—it’s sold millions of copies. It almost put ECM on the
map. So, they had that very close relationship. Keith played
it for Manfred, and Manfred really liked it, and they made
one CD. There were three sets that night, [but] supposed
to be two. Keith had brought us his super hi-fi headphones
with their own pre-amp and everything. We were recording
upstairs in the Deer Head and we didn’t have playback
speakers. We had the Auratones?
KH: I brought my KRKs [studio monitors].
BG: We weren’t able to turn them up to listen, so we had the
headphones and were checking the balances. We had a very
small set-up: a little board and a two-track DAT [digital audio
tape] recorder. About a year later, Keith called me and said,
“We’re going to put it out.” He arranged for Kent and me to
get paid, and that was it. He had also brought his espresso
machine, plugged it in, and then they had made a chicken
dinner for him, one that he had asked for. So, the band,
Kent, and I were in the back room at the Deer Head—I think
Donna had probably cooked, because she was cooking then,
and she’s an excellent cook—and everybody had espresso.
It was 8:00 and it wasn’t supposed to start until 8:30, and
everyone was wired to the gills on espresso, so Keith said,
“well, let’s start now, we’ll play three sets instead of two; I
feel like playing.” The place was full, people started arriving
around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, [maybe] 10 in the morning! It
was packed, people on the porch, 10 bucks to get in.
PM: So were the seven tracks on the album taken from one set
or across the three sets?
BG: I’d have to listen to the original tapes. It wasn’t sequential.
There’s some funny stuff on there. I still hear Keith almost
rehearsing his opening on “Bye Bye Blackbird.” There’s
silence, then you hear him play very quietly, the opening
phrase, the pick-ups; it almost sounds like pre-echo, but it’s
him. Anyway, we just brought the tapes back, listened to
them, made copies, and gave him all the copies.
KH: Well, after I made safety copies! [laughter]
BG: Somebody started a rumor that we were taking them to
some weird Japanese company and selling them. [Keith]
called me; he was very distressed. I said, “man, how long
have we known each other? You know I’m not going to do
something like that.”
PM: Did ECM edit the tapes at all?
BG: One comment I got from either Keith or Manfred was that
they thought the level of the recording was a little below
normal printing level. But it was digital, it wasn’t like printing
it at +6db on magnetic tape, it was a different process.
Anyway, I think they turned it up and did some mastering.
It sounds very close to the original from what I can tell.

PM: K
 ent, what approach did you take to get a date like this
on tape?
KH: It was a semi-normal jazz set-up except instead of using
studio mics, I ended up using cheaper Japanese AudioTechnica mics. They didn’t want it to look like a recording
session. I used two Audio-Technica 4051s on the piano,
and some clip-on mics—[produces mic], here’s one of
them without the clip on it—on the bass and, I believe,
on the snare drum, and I used a very inexpensive stereo
Audio-Technica mic overhead above the drums. Everything
was Audio-Technica—I was really into them at the time—
probably wasn’t more than a thousand dollars’ worth of
microphones. In my world, in the studio, one microphone
could be 10 or 12 thousand dollars. I had to rent a console,
as I didn’t have anything for portable recordings. I rented
a Yamaha p/a board that was the only thing I could find at
the local music store that had phantom power to power
those microphones. The mixing console had probably 12
channels or something, pretty small. I had a nice little
Lexicon reverb unit that I brought. It was direct to DAT, so
there was no remixing anything. I remember Bill playing the
drums a little before Keith got there, so I got a little sound
check on that, and when Keith got there, they played for
about four minutes, he came upstairs, listened to it, said,
“sounds fine!” and walked away. He played a bit of “How
Deep Is The Ocean” as a sound check, put on his expensive
headphones and said, “sounds good, let’s eat!”
PM: 
I noticed interesting miking of the instruments right
through. On “You And The Night And The Music,” I think
the drums were miked particularly well, and on “Basin
Street Blues” the bass sound is very warm and resonant.
BG: Gary Peacock really liked that sound. He told me later
[when Goodwin assisted in checking the sound during
the recording of Jarrett’s six sets at the Blue Note, NYC,
in June 1994] he thought that was one of the best sounds
he’d had, period.
PM: It’s an outstanding record, but not every listener digs
Keith’s humming…
KH: I didn’t use a vocal mic!
BG: You know why he does it? Because when you’re phrasing,
you want to have the breath in it. He also plays saxophone
and trumpet, so he’s putting the breath in like he’s playing
a horn. Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson—many piano players
use that to help them express the viability of the line.
PM: The first time I heard it was in classical music, Glenn Gould
playing Bach.
BG: Yeah, Glenn Gould used to make really funny noises. They’d
say, “Oh, it’s really controversial how he plays, the tempos
of the Bach pieces, and that.” They have to have something
to talk about when these guys are just so far above the
norm. Somebody’s got to be critical about it.
PM: Gentlemen, thank you. n
fall/winter 2018 | the note | 17

18 | the note | fall/winter 2018

fall/winter 2018 | the note | 19

By John Aveni

Bob Dorough Photo by Bob Weidner

“A man and a woman had a little
baby. Yes, they did. That made
three in the family. And that's
a magic number.”It’s hard to believe,
but it’s been nearly 45 years since
Bob Dorough ended one of his most
endearing Schoolhouse Rock songs by
celebrating the magic of welcoming
the next generation.

For many in the Delaware Water
Gap community, it’s equally hard to
believe that this year’s COTA festival
marked its 40th anniversary. And it,
too, celebrated the magic of the next
generation. In addition to presenting
the art and music of familiar faces on
the stage that now bears the name of
festival co-founder Rick Chamberlain,
this year’s festival expanded to
three venues and featured several
generations of artists from the local
scene and beyond.
20 | the note | fall/winter 2018

The Rick Chamberlain Stage
At the core of the 40th anniversary COTA festival were veterans who have been there since
the beginning. Bob Dorough’s Sunday set on the main stage was unforgettable. Nancy and
Spencer Reed once again displayed one of the great musical romances of the local scene.
Familiar faces performed in new configurations, including Michael Steffans’ 4 Way Split
featuring Dave Stryker, Jim Ridl, and Jay Anderson, and Zach Brock and Phil Markowitz in
the aptly named duo “Brockowitz.” Jay Rattman, Najwa Parkins, and Marcel Bellinger all
presented sets that could only come from musicians who have been immersed in the DWG
jazz community from a very young age. Each song was a reminder of things past and a
promise of things to come.
As the weekend’s musical offerings were presented under sunny September skies, the
“next generation” theme came into sharper focus with each performance. COTA has always
included younger musicians, but after four decades, the festival has become home to all
ages of COTA musicians. This year, young musicians were frequently paired with veterans
in ways that brought new artistry out of everyone involved. David Liebman’s Expansions
continued to remind us of how the next generations of local musicians can push the music
into the future. Gene Perla’s “Gene Machine” put on display the role veteran musicians
play in nurturing young talent. Sherrie Maricle’s 3Divas Trio featured John Manzari, a nextgeneration protégé of tap-dancer Maurice Hines, in a breathtaking display of the possibilities
of dance as musicianship and the near telepathic interplay of a quartet with years of stage
and touring experience. Closing out the main stage on Saturday was the familiar crew of the
Bovine Social Club with guest Tim Carbone, who once again brought everyone to their feet.
Sunday’s main stage closing act was Lara Bello, a new face at the COTA festival, supported by
Can Olgun, Josh Allen, Rajiv Jayaweera, Jay Rattman, and Janet Sora Chung.

The Deer Head Inn
On Saturday and Sunday afternoon, the more intimate setting
of the Deer Head Inn showcased young talent, often playing
with seasoned veterans to the delight of the musicians as well
as the audience. The Deer Head audience enthusiastically
welcomed Billy Test with Tyler Dempsey and Paul Rostock,
Kirk Reese with Ron Bogart and Joe Michaels, Richard Burton
and John Swana with Alex Desrivieres, Vaughn Stoffey, Chico
Huff, and Glenn Ferracone, and the father-and-son duo of Skip
and Dan Wilkins. Also at the Deer Head Inn were sets by the
generation of local jazz musicians and COTA Cats alumni who are
still in college or recently graduated, including Mitchell Cheng,
Patrick McGee, Davey Lantz, and Dan Wilkins. No debut was
more stunning than that of Esteban Castro, a 15-year-old piano
prodigy whose artistry is way beyond his years. Here again, the
trio represented three generations, with veteran Bill Goodwin
and COTA Cats alum Evan Gregor providing the rhythm.

The view of the main stage from the hill Photo by Bob Weidner
Spencer and Nancy Reed joined
by saxophonist Larry McKenna
Photo by Bob Weidner

Closing out the Deer Head Inn on Saturday were sets by the
Katie Thiroux Quartet featuring Ken Peplowski, Steven Feifke
and Matt Witek, followed by the Bill Goodwin Trio featuring Jon
Ballantyne, Evan Gregor and guest vocalist Marianne Solivan.
Sunday night’s closing Jam session was a raucous affair, fueled
by the energy of Thiroux and Solivan with all hands on deck.

The Great Hall of the Castle Inn
At the Great Hall of the Castle Inn, a new stage shared the
upstairs hall with the paintings from the Friday night Art
Show. Here, the Tott’s Gap Dancers presented afternoon
sets accompanied by musicians also featured at the Deer
Head Inn. Closing out the stage on Saturday night was the
newly christened Delaware Water Gap Orchestra, led by Matt
Vashlishan, while Sunday continued the theme of presenting
young musician’s with sets by the 2017 Camp Jazz Rising
Stars student groups and their faculty mentors. The festival’s
newest stage also featured a streamlined version of the COTA
Cats. Matt Vashlishan led a nonet featuring area high school
students and anchored by Evan Gregor, Jay Rattman, and Sean
McAnally through challenging charts, including compositions
and arrangements by Phil Woods’ Little Big Band.

A New Beginning
Jazz is not a stagnant art form, and the COTA festival has always
embraced new expressions of jazz performance while paying
tribute to the giants. Audiences have grown up sitting on the hill
and listening to music from familiar faces on the outdoor stage.
This year, three stages were filled with multiple generations of
jazz musicians who made it clear that the next forty years are
something to look forward to indeed. Whether you prefer a
blanket on the hill, a bar stool in the Deer Head Inn, or a chair
in the Castle Inn, there will be spots waiting for you next year.
We hope to see you then. n

The chorus of the jazz mass Sunday morning Photo by Bob Weidner
Phil Markowitz and Zack Brock
Photo by Bob Weidner

This is the full version of Patrick Dorian’s essay that was shortened
for the insert booklet of the CD Phil Woods: Works for Saxophone,
It was released on the Minsi Ridge
recorded by the Celebration Sax Quartet. Records label (MMR 0068) in October 2017.

Musique de Cha m bre Pour
Saxophone(s) Composé par Philippe DuBois

In December 2003 when I first nominated Phil for the
NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship, the nation’s highest jazz
award, I felt it necessary to document how remarkably
balanced he was as both a world-class performer and
composer. My letter justly got to the committee’s
table and lingered there a few years while other icons
received their due, then time came for close friends
and advocates like Buddy DeFranco to state the case
from a colleague’s perspective to the committee.
In January 2007 when he was named an NEA Jazz
Master, he received this accolade primarily as “ComposerArranger” with “Saxophonist, Bandleader, Educator” as very
close secondary categories. Presenting it as such allowed the
committee to offer other awards for artists who were primarily
splendid performers.

CD insert front cover

Phil Woods (1931-2015) continues to have a profound
influence on jazz and the music universe in general.
His recorded virtuosic improvised solos on alto
saxophone and clarinet continue to astound both
neophytes and accomplished musicians, in addition
to that unforgettable “Phil optic” of eyes closed, the
vertical movement of the saxophone, and that HAT!
It is poetic justice to balance this superb artistry
with equal emphasis on his consummate skills as
a composer. Improvisation can be thought of as
spontaneous composition, so it was always easy for
him to switch gears, slow down, and meticulously
notate his musical thoughts.

Phil felt he was lacking knowledge of the great classical
composers, so he immediately started studying scores of
composers whose last names started with the letter A in
the Juilliard library. This led to fluency in musical forms such
as the Sonata contained herein. For decades, Phil joked to
his wife Jill about continuously working on a piece in rondo
form, where a principal theme continually returns, around
and around and around. One time while on tour overseas
with his Quintet, Jill asked Phil during breakfast if he’d like
to sightsee that day. He told her, “I have to finish my rondo.”
This would lead to bassist colleague of over 40 years Steve
Gilmore’s humorous observation to Jill: “You know, you can’t
rush a rondo.”

This recording adds an extraordinary and dense package to
Phil’s oeuvre and also serves as a fine addition to the canon of
chamber music with a jazz emphasis, as this CD contains works
with both notated and improvised sounds. I believe full well that
Phil would have wanted this CD narrated from a personal and
local POV, especially in terms of his compositional/revisional
chamber music efforts since moving to the Delaware Water Gap
(his beloved “The Gap”). Could these four decades be thought
of in the classical world as a sort of Pines of the Gappian Way? Phil told me several times that his favorite composer in music
history was the early Romantic period French composer
(My apologies to Ottorino Respighi’s millions of admirers.)
Hector Berlioz. Perhaps Phil also felt parallels to his own
Phil attended the Juilliard School of Music in the late 1940s journey, with his French heritage and the four years that
and early 1950s, majoring as he said “in orchestral clarinet he lived in France. To clarify, Michael Wright has described
during the day while minoring on 52nd Street at night.” Berlioz as “compelled to live his life according to his art. He
was both dreamer and realist.”
22 | the note | fall/winter 2018

Somewhat surprisingly, Phil was more than enthusiastic
about learning the new computer music notation
software as it became commonplace in the 1990s after
he had turned 60. In fact, he was a major advocate of
this technology. When he was interviewed for the NEA
upon receiving Jazz Master status, he was asked about
composing:
	2007 NEA Jazz Master Phil Woods can spend hours
in a day -- or night -- perched in his woodland home
in rural Pennsylvania composing music. His method?
	Phil Woods: I write up here in my head usually.
Sometimes it’s an idea from the saxophone and then
I will go to the piano and do a sketch. And when I
have some idea of where the piece is going, or at
least a start, then I go to the computer and finish it.
I can hear it instantly; I can check all the right notes,
the wrong notes; I can try all sorts of different things.

Y ou see the hardest part about
art is the options you have.

The antithesis of the night owl jazz musician stereotype,
Phil was usually up at the break of day, and after
“brushing his tooth,” as he would say, he would get on
the computer to compose and/or revise, revise, revise
previous works, right up through their performance, at
times composing complete new sections up through the
better part of an entire movement. Many great artists,
not only from music but also the literary arts and the
visual arts, are wired to constantly revise throughout
their artistic evolution, and as Matt Vashlishan wrote:

Rehearsing with Phil was always an interesting
event, as you never knew which Phil would turn
up. Sometimes he was nit-picky Phil, other times he
was unfocused Phil, and sometimes he was down to
business just eager to hear his new parts. Speaking
of his new parts, Phil was constantly editing and
sending us new versions of all the pieces.
As hair-raising as this might seem, it all worth it, as Neil
Wetzel had idolized Phil for over 35 years and said:
	
The quartet would meet and rehearse in Phil’s home-what a gas! I was in Phil’s home!
Jay Rattman added:
	
Phil constantly revised his music, so there would
be new versions of his pieces at each rehearsal.
The initial rehearsals in his living room were a
great hang and frequently hilarious, but minimally
productive: we played constantly to get through all
of the music he had written and was eager to hear
for the first time, but there was rarely any stopping
and going back to fix mistakes, let alone fine-tune
passages. “Keep it moving, I’m double parked!”
was his standard line. The actual careful rehearsing
could only take place when he wasn’t around.

Phil and his life partner Jill Goodwin arrived in Delaware Water Gap in the
early 1970s and they would make “the Gap” their home starting in 1973. He
would quickly become Gap-centric, thriving artistically and personally, while
touring the world and starting his legendary acoustic quartet in February
1974 with two members who would stay with him for 43 years: drummer and
future brother-in-law Bill Goodwin and bassist Steve Gilmore. He managed
to keep a sentimental balance between his quartet/quintet, his big band, the
village of DWG, and the world. Phil’s deep passion for music, family, and the
community was reflected in his personality, which Jill describes as “mercurial.”
This included a boisterous festive side of him that knew when to celebrate.
Phil’s father was from Québec, yet he never officially changed his surname
DuBois. When Phil returned stateside after living in France from 1968 to
1972, he named his next album Musique du bois (1974), in honor of his
father. Plus, for decades, his music publishing company has been called
Music DuBois. He once wittily told our late friend and colleague George
Robert: “I use my Québécois blood to mellow out my Irish side.” He
frequently supported the Delaware Water Gap Fire Department by holding
benefits with live music, directly honoring his father, who was a firefighter
in Phil’s native Springfield, MA.
Jill and Phil would eventually purchase a home on Mountain Road, a mere
block-and-a-half uphill from the Gap’s legendary jazz performance space, the
Deer Head Inn. (This first home would be destroyed by fire on December 9,
1985, despite the valiant efforts of the local fire company; Jill and Phil had
a safer and eco-efficient home built on the same site over the next several
years.) One spring evening in 1978, he was sitting at the bar in the Deer Head
with accomplished trombonist and Gap resident Rick Chamberlain, and Ed
Joubert, who owned the Gap’s musical tavern The Bottom of the Fox, while
musician after musician took their turn sitting in with the great house piano
performer John Coates, Jr. Their conversation led to the conclusion that they
should take the session outside onto the street to share their good work with
the community. Thus the DWG Celebration of the Arts Jazz & Arts Festival was
born, premiering in September of that year. The COTA organization presented
their 40th festival in September 2017, having never engaged corporate
sponsors. A teacher since the 1950s, the ever-community-minded Phil would
send letters out to 26 area high schools three years later to start a summer
student big band that would perform at COTA. Accordingly, the COTA Cats
were born in 1981. As a 25-year-old teacher that first year, I would go on to
direct that ensemble for 20 years.
The Celebration Sax Quartet
Photo by Garth Woods

fall/winter 2018 | the note | 23

Herein contained in one extraordinary package are four of Phil
Woods’ jazz chamber works for saxophone recorded by his
handpicked ensemble that he rehearsed several times for live
performance, followed by this recording one and a half years after
his death. A majority of the virtuosity contained here is home grown.
The Celebration Sax Quartet (CSQ) (there’s that C-word again!)
uses standard soprano-alto-tenor-baritone instrumentation in a
manner similar to human voice-type classifications. The members
have a wide range of age from top voice soprano saxophonist
Nelson Hill and tenor saxophonist Neil Wetzel as the “ol’ dudes” (as
Phil would call senior folks like Budd Johnson), both in their midfifties. Nelson took several years of lessons from Woods starting as
a teenaged local high school student in the mid-1970s and Neil first
idolized Phil at a jazz concert near his boyhood home in Emmaus,
PA around 1980. Thirty-something Matt Vashlishan is in the
enviable position of alto saxophonist, first encountering Woods in
the late 1990s as a student member of the aforementioned COTA
Cats. The band is rounded out by young ‘un Jay Rattman on the
low-blow baritone sax, presently in his late 20s. He first interacted
with Woods as barely a teenager while taking lessons in the late
nineties and then becoming a member of the COTA Cats in the
early twenty-aughts.
Jay Rattman stated:
	Hearing Phil around Water Gap was my reason for playing
the saxophone in the first place, and when I was in fifth grade,
learning how to play in the school band, I would go to bed
every night listening to his newly-released big band album
Celebration! (1997) for inspiration. Studying with him, just a
year or two later, I knew how incredibly lucky I was, and was
properly petrified at every lesson. He was demanding, impatient,
gruff, and simultaneously encouraging and incredibly generous.
At the end of my first lesson, by which point I felt hopelessly
overwhelmed and discouraged, he said, “You really want it,
don’t you?” I nodded, and he replied, “You will get it. If you can
hear it, you can have it.” Rather than accept payment, he told
me to take what I would pay him and save it for college. Certain
things he showed me at that very first lesson -- harmonic ideas
on the piano, and instructions on clean saxophone technique -- I
use to this day.
As Phil’s students/colleagues, they collectively had over 80 years
with him… these are Phil’s musical peeps!
Each of these sax-AH-phon-ists have remarkable performing and
recording experience, plus each has very strong academic cred as
they’ve earned a total of nine degrees at prestigious music schools.
Matt and Neil are the two “doctors of music” in the ensemble
in case any of us need musical medicinal guidance. Add to that
Phil Markowitz’s prestigious piano performance degree and you
have ten serious sheepskins. Each dedicates many hours a week
to teaching. For example, Neil is the Chairperson of the Music
Department at Moravian College and Matt directs the University
Jazz Ensemble at nearby East Stroudsburg University. Nelson
teaches at Bloomsburg University and Phil Markowitz teaches
graduate students at the Manhattan School of Music. Nelson, Matt,
24 | the note | fall/winter 2018

and Jay were raised within a 20-minute drive of the legendary Deer
Head Inn in Delaware Water Gap and Neil has made the Deer Head
his musical home away from home as he performs there at least 15
times a year. Neil stated Phil’s influence in an illuminating manner:
	Phil was always on my radar as an idol and someone to aspire
to musically.
	My first live jazz concert I attended was with Phil Woods and
his quartet playing in Emmaus--the club is no longer there.
It must have been around 1980--it was fabulous! To sit so
close and hear that great sound and witness his amazing
technique was incredible.
	The first time I shared the stage with him was in 1982 when he
was guest soloist with the Philadelphia College of Performing
Arts big band (I was the lead alto player in that band). At that
time I had worn out my copy of his LP Live at the Showboat. That
was one of the most influential albums in my entire musical life.
	I lived and worked so close to Phil but didn’t really cross paths
with him on a regular basis until he was our guest artist at
Moravian College’s 2013 fall jazz series (in collaboration with
Alan Gaumer and the Pennsylvania Jazz Collective). Then I
began to communicate with Phil and was invited to play with
the Celebration Saxophone Quartet and what is now called the
Delaware Water Gap Jazz Orchestra.
The CSQ starting rehearsing under Phil’s supervision in spring
2015, leading to performing “A Saxophone Celebration,” a formal
concert of all of the music contained here, on the campus of East
Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania in the Cecilia Cohen Recital
Hall on Sunday, May 17, 2015 (coincidentally, Cohen Recital Hall
is named after Jay Rattman’s grandmother). This concert would
be less than four months before Phil’s last performance at the
Manchester Craftsman’s Guild in Pittsburgh on September 4,
followed by his death on September 29.
Matt Vashlishan spoke of the rehearsals:

Rehearsing with Phil was always
an interesting event, as you never
knew which Phil would turn up . Sometimes
he was nit-picky Phil,other times he was unfocused Phil, and
sometimes he was down to business just eager to hear his new
parts. Speaking of his new parts, Phil was constantly editing
and sending us new versions of all the pieces. Looking back
through my emails from Phil during this time, I am amused
by the subject headings: “Re-write,” then the next day, “More
better,” followed by, “OOPS! More better PDFs” since he sent
us the straight notation program files instead of something
we could open. The same was true with nearly every project
we worked on. Some of the other hilarious strings involve,
“final, more, new lead in, I know I know, sorry…” and back to
“final” again, all for the same project! Any time I got really
frustrated with the work flow I would sit back and remind
myself what I was involved in and who I was involved with,
and somehow it all worked itself out just fine.

A year later, the CSQ reconvened to perform at the
39th annual COTA Jazz & Arts Festival on September
10, 2016. That year’s event was dedicated to Phil’s
memory and this recording followed a few months
later in winter and spring 2017.
The quartet pieces were all recorded on February
9, 2017 and Jay Rattman recalled:
Scheduling the recording and the last rehearsals
leading up to it had been so protracted that
when a blizzard was forecast for the week we
had chosen, we were all determined to try to
make it work no matter what. The sessions had
the feel, for me at least, of a cozy couple of snow
days, stuck inside, hanging out, playing really
hard music, and trying to do our collective best
to render the masterpieces Phil had left us.
About each piece, Phil might say, “You’ll hear it,”
or as he told Jay in his first daunting lesson, “If you
can hear it, you can have it,” the same phrase that
Dizzy Gillespie told a dejected Phil Woods in 1956,
preceded by, “You can’t steal a gift,” talking about
Charlie Parker’s influence on a 25 year-old Woods.
Here are a few guide points. The first four tracks
are Three Improvisations for Sax Quartet. If you
noticed that four movements were recorded,
contradicting the main title of this work, you are
correct. And Matt Vashlishan explained:
	The second movement, “Funky,” was included in
the piece originally as an “optional extension of
the first movement” and Phil later named it and
added it as its own movement for the first time
at the May 2015 concert at ESU.
Phil was a committed composer from his midtwenties. Three Improvisations was commissioned
by the New York Saxophone Quartet in 1958,
during the time when his performing career was
blossoming. He was on a 10-week Birdland All-Stars
tour and state department tours to South America
and the Middle East with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band in
1956. Having married Charlie Parker’s widow Chan
in 1957, he was providing for her two children, Kim
and Baird, a couple of years before their children,
Garth and Aimee, would be born.
At the May 17, 2015 concert at ESU, Phil told the
audience that “the NYSQ was the first one to utilize
jazz” beyond the classical French repertoire and that
important composers such as John Carisi, Manny
Albam, and Eddie Sauter were also commissioned
by the group. The NYSQ recorded it in March 1980,
it was first published by Kendor Music in 1981,
revised and re-typeset for publication by Advance
Music in 2001, and was finally followed with the
spring 2015 edit as recorded here.

Starting with Presto, the band immediately locks in the opening rhythmic
motif, proving that they don’t need a drummer, reflecting what Nelson
has taught for decades: “everyone must be their own drummer.” Striking
dynamic (volume) contrasts abound, effectively executed throughout. The
composer effectively uses an ascending pyramid at 00:44 and a descending
cascade at 01:22 and this technique is used at other times in the overall
work. At 02:13 Neil takes us into a slow waltz through the fermata.
The second movement, Funky, featured as its own entity in 2015, contains
the only actual improvisation in any of the four movements and it shows
Phil’s affinity for the blues form on a deceptively basic I-IV-I- IV-I harmonic
structure, yet he expands the commonplace 12-bar construction to 20 bars.
A comic entity once stated, “Aww, you jazz musicians are just making that
stuff up,” and gosh do these artists have at it! The tenor and bari set us up
with parallel tritones. Nelson starts the improvisations followed by Matt. Phil
takes it up a half step at 01:27 but checks our ears to see if we’re engaged
by taking out one pulse every 8 beats, establishing the blues in seven. It is
here where Neil gets a crack at it, followed by Jay’s volley. That prankster Phil
starts the final section with a clever reference to the main horn motif from
Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks by Richard Strauss and then each member
gives us a short soulful cadenza in ascending order.
Ballad, marked Broadly & Freely, starts off with a phrase that Phil might have
ended up borrowing from himself 20+ years later when he penned Randi for
Norwegian jazz devotee and critic Randi Hultin. As he often paraphrased, “If
you’re going to steal, steal from the best.” It has a reverent reading by Nelson
on soprano, expressing his passions about his first teacher. Incidentally, to
reinforce his respect, Nelson composed and has publicly performed The
Mentor, a joyous tribute to Woods. The constant meter changes in the
beginning section are skillfully masked by the composer and the performers.
The reverence continues with Matt’s melody at 1:20 followed by Jay’s
remarkable control on an expressivo solo at 02:07 just before the sensitive
settling at the end that sets up…
The Celebration Sax Quartet’s
saxophonist Matt Vashlishan
Photo by Garth Woods

fall/winter 2018 | the note | 25

The fourth movement. Scherzo contains severe technical challenges
that the CSQ tackles with virtuosic aplomb. They pass the complex
metric changing-laden motif around with a sense of ownership as
though each of them composed it. Phil takes us back into the swing
pocket, but only for short spurts, as he’s committed to keeping the
listener (and performer?) off balance. The ending takes us into
harmonically striking closure, convincing our ears that a major 7
chord with a lowered fifth is a fine way to close it out.
Blue Vignettes was commissioned by music educator, composer,
string pedagogue, and woodwind doubler Adam Michlin
(www.michlinmusic.com) for the music program at Barron Collier
High School in Naples, FL. The connectivity of the saxophone world
is evident as one of Adam’s important mentors was Victor Morosco,
who attended the May 17, 2015 concert at ESU along with Adam.
The copyright date is 2012, making it the most recent piece on
this CD. It starts out with a lovely, relaxed quasi-ballad section and
then at 02:29 a marked different style is presented with a marchlike propulsion, perhaps a relaxed parade replete with a couple of
breaks. A transition features Nelson taking appropriate liberties
with the written part as it settles into Jay’s slow swinging bass line
at 04:41, which starts a basic 12-bar blues form using the blues
scale, referring to the title while managing an interesting Gershwinesque rhapsody vibe.
The second chorus
at 05:34 moves us
forward at least
40 years both jazz
stylistically and
pop
culturally
with a quote of
Eleanor Rigby at 05:42. At 06:27, an enchanteur interlude in
three-four meter featuring Woodsian melodic lines passed
around the band transists to a section marked “Ballad” at
07:22. It’s Jay turn in the spotlight and he plays it slow, sweet, and
nasty underneath some standard blues language. He was born to
play the big horn (he even owns a bass sax and often transports it
via NYC subway – commitment!). A bold cadenza at 08:49 brings
it to a sharply stung dominant 7th with a sharp 9th at 08:57 as it
moves into a subtle “up” tempo change at 09:03, morphing into
a marcato section at 09:22 with Nelson and Matt taking turns
soaring over the active cityscape below. At 11:12, Phil returns to
the previous three-note motive, signaling the assertive closure.

Performance” can be heard on YouTube by entering “Phil Woods
– Sonata for Saxophone – Victor Morosco.” Morosco states on his
website that the original title was Four Moods for Alto and Piano,
which could have been the actual title not included in the Carnegie
Recital Hall printed program. It was published by Kendor Music in
1980 during a period when they were publishing many of Woods’
jazz pieces including all of the works from his classic I Remember…
album for studio orchestra recorded in March 1978 in London. The
1980 Kendor publication was recorded and released on Morosco’s
1981 album Double Exposure and is available on Morosco’s website
(MS102CD - Morsax Music). The most recent version is a revised
and newly engraved edition published by Advance Music in 1997.
I defer and refer to the statements about the piece on Morosco’s
website and his Notes on Interpretation and Performance on the
inside cover of the 1997 Advance Music publication. Along with the
1962, 1981, and this June 10, 2017 recording, they give a glimpse
into the striking revisions that this work took over the decades.
Just to get us started, Phil’s revisionistic tendencies are documented
by Morosco’s statement on the YouTube page: “The parts were
literally drying on the stand when this piece was premiered with a
trio (including John Beal on bass) in 1962.” Morosco has also stated:
“As an example of the blending of the elements of traditional
and jazz music, the Sonata is more than just the
juxtaposition of two kinds of music. The composer
requires the performers to embellish the written
music as well
as improvise at
given sections,
much in the
spirit of jazz and
in the true tradition
of Baroque music.
It is performed
here in such a manner that the listener is often unsure where
the written music stops and the improvisations take over.” With
that in mind, and Phil’s quote “for the performer to take part in
the creation of the work and to have fun,” suffice it to say that I
must laud the virtuosic execution by Matt and Phil Markowitz, who
both have that formidable Eastman School of Music pedigree (as
does Nelson) three decades apart. Must be that “Eastman thing”
that they acquired while there, maintaining and expanding upon
it throughout their journeys. Their ability to play with a sparkling
classical approach and immediately switch to world-class jazz
interpretation or improvisation is stunning. Markowitz has a
remarkable performing and recording resume and has developed
a mastery of both the keyboard and the pedals, the auditory and
visual study of which would be of benefit to any piano performer
aspiring for greatness. Markowitz has a home 40 minutes west of
Delaware Water Gap, performed many times with small ensembles
led by Woods, played synthesizer on Woods’ May 1996 CD Astor &
Elis, and recorded two pieces with Woods on Bob Dorough’s
Duets CD, one of which was with the New York Voices.

Sonata for Alto Sax and Piano was composed for and dedicated to
Victor Morosco (b. 1936), a virtuoso saxophonist ( www.morsax.
com ) since the late 1950s. Being propelled by his ever-present
oxygen machine, Phil entertainingly told the audience at ESU in May
2015, “This was my first commission. We were in Juilliard together.
I was a senior and he was a freshman and I used to bum cigarettes
off of him and it’s really paid off!” Morosco premiered it at Carnegie
Recital Hall on Sunday November 2, 1962 (Phil’s 31st birthday) with
the title Piece for Saxophone, Bass and Piano by Philip Woods, and
the accompanists were Abraham Stockman on piano and John
Beal on bass. The bass part would later be expunged. This “First In the first movement, even though entire segments sound
improvised, the actual improvisations occur for the sax at 03:48
for two choruses with “comped” piano accompaniment through
26 | the note | fall/winter 2018

04:42. At the end of each chorus, Phil M’s voicings on
the four measures of waltz meter chime like pristine
church bells. At 05:10 Phil starts his improvisation,
followed eventually by some background figures
from Matt. At 05:56 they enter a section where they
eventually “trade fours,” alternating four-measure
segments of improvisation. The piece starts to dissolve
but then comes back at us with a crashing climax,
where Matt opts to improvise for the last 20 seconds
instead of holding one long pitch.

Jazz programming started there on Good Friday 1951. How much did Phil
revere the DHI, where he spent many glory nights for 60 years? In Phil’s final
day of life, Deer Head co-owner Denny Carrig visited him in the hospital. Phil
whispered, “Thanks for being my friend. I want the Deer Head to have my
piano,” since the existing piano needed so much work. Reverential to say
the least. Phil and Jill’s Yamaha C7 is now the centerpiece of the Inn and the
legendary jazz community. It’s not just piano players who travel significant
distances to play or interact with this wonderful instrument. Perhaps his
Sonata for Alto Sax and Piano will have a live performance on the Yamaha at
the Inn as the months go on (subtle hint there, Denny et al.).

Movement II is entirely in triple meter. The key word
here (as used by Morosco) is ethereal, as Matt shows
his depth of expressional devices and one might hear
influences from the 1940s through the new millennium
in the moods he creates.

The second iteration was transformed for saxophone quartet in 1994 and
premiered as Phil was awarded an honorary doctorate at East Stroudsburg
University of Pennsylvania’s commencement ceremony on May 21, 1994.
This would be his first of two honorary doctorates; the second would be
awarded in June 2009 by DePaul University in Chicago, where he shared
the accolade with David Axelrod, among others. When I heard that he
would simultaneously be honored with Axelrod, I commented to Phil,
“Interesting… two of the world’s great improvisers being honored at once.”
Like the procedure for his NEA Jazz Master nomination, it was a severalyear and several-tiered process initiated this time by Dr. Larry Fisher, then
ESU’s music department chairperson. Larry and Phil were instrumental in
founding the ESU’s Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection a few months after
Al’s death in February 1988. (Al and Phil both died in Pocono Medical
Center.)

Movement III might be thought of as a tango in fivefour meter. The piano improvisation starts at 01:02
followed by the alto at 01:43. An inventive interlude
brings us back to a recap of the five-four meter at
05:11. An introspective transition segues us into
track 9, Movement IV. After some interesting sax
tonal execution, the movement breaks into a piano
part featuring a pedal point bass line juxtaposed with
a secco ostinato. The sax emphasizes multiphonics
and half-fingered pitches alternating with fullfingered pitches. As it passes through 03:11, the
seemingly unrelenting ostinato is referenced with
various events as the composer completely revised
the final two minutes of the 1997 version, once
again completely altering his original intention with
equally exquisite effect.
The hometown favorite is saved for last. Deer Head
Sketches is particularly meaningful to me, since the
prototype of at least three iterations was composed
circa 1987 not for saxophone quartet but for the Water
Gap Brass. This ensemble was started in the early 1980s
and consisted of Ken Brader III and myself (trumpet and
flugelhorn), the late Rick Chamberlain (trombone), and
Jim Daniels on bass trombone. We would often end
up together as part of augmented house bands in the
Pocono resorts when Rick and Jim weren’t touring with
the likes of Chuck Mangione, Gerry Mulligan, Mel Lewis
& the Jazz Orchestra, or Engelbert. We even performed
in Florida a couple of times thanks to Jim’s ebullient
parents. Phil heard us perform a few park concerts at
the Church of the Mountain gazebo and saw how we
paralleled the NYSQ in our eclectic stylistic approach.
This initial version described in five movements his
beloved Deer Head Inn just down the hill from his
home in the bucolic borough of 700 Gappians.
The Deer Head (the longest-running jazz club in one
location in the United States) continues to be a jazz
mecca, with parallels of biblical times when the temple
was at times boisterous, then immediately reverent.

Larry was well versed in the state university way of red tape protocol
and knew how to work toward getting things “to the man behind the
curtain” in both Oz and Harrisburg. His first letter of nomination was
dated October 11, 1991, and would go through several rungs in several
buildings up through the chain until the ceremony almost three years later.
Phil had decided to keep his verbal remarks short and allow his feelings
to be conveyed by premiering two works. This inventive approach was
publicized, and an article (“If This Is Too Radical, How about a Jazzy ‘Pomp
and Circumstance’?”) appeared in the Wall Street Journal two days before
the event. Phil was quoted in the article:

I prefer making my statement with the music
and I think this will be a refreshing change
from the normal speechifying that goes on.

The saxophone quartet included Nelson Hill (yes, THAT Nelson Hill) on
soprano sax, Pat Turner on alto sax, Tom Hamilton on tenor sax, and Richy
Barz on baritone sax. This version was published by Advance Music in 1994
and was recorded by the NYSQ in May 1999 for the CD Urbanology.
The printed program quoted Phil:
“Deer Head Sketches” includes sketches about musicians and staff
members of the historic Deer Head Inn in Delaware Water Gap. I wanted
to pay a tribute to the musicians who have touched the hearts of the jazz
fans at the Deer Head. Like ESU, the Deer Head Inn plays an important
role in the history of the past 50 years.
In addition to the Deer Head Sketches premiere, I directed ESU’s University
Jazz Ensemble with Phil on alto in the premiere performance of Phil’s Piece
for Piazzolla, written in honor of the Argentinean master of tango music
who had died a year or so before. Phil would record a small-band version
of it two years later on the aforementioned Astor & Elis CD.

in the region, The Bandstand. If any one piece of music exemplifies
his spirit and intent, this is the one. The introduction sets us up for
the main rhythm changes melody at 00:17 and it just plain sounds
like a vintage Phil Woods tune that could have been composed
over the decades for his quintet or big band. Everybody gets “a
piece of this” (both individually and collectively – Every tub!), as
Phil used to say when he’d offer someone a chance to improvise.
He revised the last two minutes (of course!) to include parts of
the extended version of How’s Your Mama?, his quintet and bigband theme song that closed every set for decades. The ensemble
does some “trading” and continues by musically citing a few iconic
bebop snippets. At 05:37, Nelson returns us to the introduction
as a reminder of the spirit of the title. The ensemble gives us a
The remainder of the original 1987 work was expunged, but it final push and flourish. We’d expect nothing less from them or Phil
seems that the next version would be very reflective of the first, during any of the hundreds of nights at the Deer Head. They roar
especially in the swing melodic lines. These purged sections at right to the end of “the set” for a rousing reaction from all of us.
least deserve mention for Phil’s sentiments about the place. A A final word from Dr. Vashlishan:
second movement was called Fay & Bob, named after the couple,
The best part of working on this project with Phil
last name Lehr, who bought the Inn on June 30, 1950 and would
operate it for over 40 years. It started out with a ballad for Fay
was that we all knew he was really happy with it.
and transitioned into a double-time swing section for Bob. The
He was always ecstatic to hear his music, and we all knew
third movement was Jerry’s Tango, named after bartender Jerry
how much he appreciated it. One of the best memories and
Baxter, who taught in Hackettstown, NJ when Bob Lehr was a
feelings from performing this music was finishing a movement
school administrator there. Jerry was renowned in the area, having
in a concert and hearing him yell “YEAH!” even before the
also spent years tending bar at the legendary Rudy’s Tavern in
audience has a chance to applaud.
East Stroudsburg. A fourth movement was Off the Trail, a clever
reference to Ferde Grofé’s On the Trail, since the 2,200-mile We’re on our feet, looking up at the bandstand and yelling, “YEAH,”
Appalachian Trail goes alongside the Deer Head. A fifth movement right back at you, Phil… Bien joué, M. DuBois… TRÈS bien fait!
was titled Johnny Coates for the celebrated piano player who Patrick Dorian
started at the Deer Head in 1955 while in his mid-teens and held pdorian@esu.edu
court for over 50 years. It contained (are you ready for this?) swing, August 23, 2017
collective swing improvisation, collective Bach-like improvisation, a
shout chorus, collective Dixie-style improvisation, where someone In September 1980, Mary & Patrick Dorian had the good fortune
decided that the brass quartet would march around and leave the of arriving in the Pocono Mountains after Pat finished his graduate
performance space momentarily, returning with “a little hipper!” studies at Northwestern University. Pat became an associate of Phil
collective improvisation leading to some sort of bloody stump Woods for over 30 years, first as the director of the first 20 years
(lip) closure. If Matt would like to investigate the potential of of the COTA Cats, the summer student jazz ensemble founded by
this movement for sax quartet, please have at it, since it ain’t Woods in 1981. Dorian was also a member of the trumpet section
happenin’ for us brass guys.
in the Phil Woods Big Band (aka the COTA Festival Orchestra) for
Movement II on the CD is The Kitchen and features Nelson on one over 20 years, “serving” on two European tours in 1998 and 2000
of his typical tour-de-force improvisations, where Jay is asked to and the Grammy-nominated CD Celebration!, recorded in 1997,
improvise a bass line under him starting at 01:24. Matt takes over and a second CD, New Celebration, recorded in 2013. Sitting
at 02:42, showing his former teacher Nelson what he’s learned. At poolside at a Bayonne, France hotel in 1998, Phil Woods and Clark
03:19 the mood changes as the orchestration becomes tutti with Terry bestowed the name “Split Fourth” upon him, referring to the
lovely chord cycles. A marked syncopated yet swinging section inherent “challenges” of playing last-chair trumpet in a big band
and possibly needing assistance. Two years later, Phil Woods and
takes this one out.
Lou Marini, Jr. lightheartedly demoted him to “Split Fifth.” After
The Porch is another area where seminal decisions have been 33 years of public school instrumental music junior high school,
made over the decades, whether it was musicians getting some senior high school, and state university teaching, he retired from
air on their break or folks lingering after the doors were locked. A East Stroudsburg University in 2013 at the preeminent rank of
striking smooth as silk ballad, it seems to portray a late night/early Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Music. He continues to record
morning atmosphere as the street lights give way to the sunrise.
and tour on last trumpet with NEA Jazz Master Dave Liebman’s
Appropriately closing out this beautiful bundle is Phil’s musical Big Band, directed by Gunnar Mossblad. Pat wishes to thank Mary
description of the epicenter of the Inn and the entire culture of jazz Dorian, Jill Goodwin, Jenny Fisher, Dr. Larry Fisher, and all of the
folks who performed on and produced this package. n
28 | the note | fall/winter 2018
Phil had marked/dated the music parts with “Updated 1/14” for
this third and final rendering. The first movement (The Bar) was
originally The Gathering, in line with the Inn being the place where
he, Rick, and Ed would have gathered to talk about the first COTA
festival in 1978. The form is ABA, opening with a rollicking “walking
down Mountain Road” (from Phil and Jill’s house) statement
giving way to worshipful church chords that lead into a chorale.
Nelson consistently moves back and forth from an orchestral flute
approach sound while Matt does the same, channeling the role
of an oboe. This is followed by an altered return to the opening
section and ending on an apprehensive yet somber chord where
the bass note is a tritone away from the major chord above. The
original score has “to Ballad” written at the end.

In music, if not
in fame, Al Cohn

reached the pinnacle

By Fred Seitz

His Legacy
Lives On :

This article was originally published in the Pocono Record
on Sunday, February 21, 1988, and is used with permission.
Al Cohn, the tenor saxophonist and arranger who died last
week at the age of 62, was one of those jazz musicians whose
popularity never quite equaled the notoriety he had earned
among musicians and music critics.
Today at 3 p.m., many of them are expected to turn out for a
memorial tribute to him in the Deer Head Inn, Delaware Water
Gap, where in December Cohn played publicly for the last time.
Cohn became ill on Jan. 1 in Chicago, where he had gone to play
a scheduled engagement. A Canadensis resident for the past
17 years, he returned home and was later admitted to Pocono
Hospital, where he died of cancer last Monday.
His professional credits were wide-ranging yet so often behindthe-scenes in nature that even listeners familiar with his playing
Al Cohn and Steve Gilmore
knew little of his rich professional legacy. But those who knew
Photo by Walter Bredel
Cohn and worked with him have no trouble recalling the musical
qualities that made his sound special, or the personal qualities A Local Force
that made him special.
In recent years, Cohn had become a familiar figure in this area’s
thriving jazz scene, perhaps especially leading his quartet at
On the Road
Cohn went on the road in 1943 at the age of 17, playing first with Delaware Water Gap’s annual Celebration of the Arts.
the Joe Marsala band. During the next five years, he also played As an arranger, Cohn wrote for the singers Tony Bennett,
with bands led by Georgie Auld, Alvino Rey, Artie Shaw and Buddy Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, Peggy Lee and Andy Wiliams. His
Rich. He would eventually tour much of the world, after joining television credits in that role included two shows that won
Emmy Awards, ‘s Wonderful, ‘s Marvelous, ‘s Gershwin, starring
Woody Herman’s band at the age of 23.
When he joined Herman in Salt Lake City in 1948, he played Fred Astaire and Jack Lemmon, and a special that featured the
alongside Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, and Serge Chaloff, a baritone actress Anne Bancroft.
saxophonist, and Herbie Steward, who Cohn replaced in the band. He also wrote for the popular mid-‘50s TV show, “Your Hit Parade,”
After about a year with Herman, Cohn’s career took one of its most as well as the comedy shows of Ernie Kovacs and Sid Caesar.
significant turns when he teamed up with Zoot Sims. As co-leaders On Broadway, Cohn arranged the musicals, Raisin and
of smaller groups, the two played almost every night together Sophisticated Ladies. He also wrote arrangements for the Benny
during the late 1950s at the Half Note, a club at the corner of Goodman band, and played with Goodman on the recording,
Hudson and Spring streets in New York City. Their 1957 recording Jazz Mission to Moscow, following a tour of the Soviet Union.
on the Coral label, Al and Zoot, was said by New York Times critic In discussing his career as an arranger, Cohn once said that he
John S. Wilson to embody “a matchless musical empathy.”
felt his playing may have suffered some for the time he devoted
Later, one of Cohn’s many albums as a leader, Al Cohn’s America, to writing. Early in this decade he rededicated himself to be
earned a five-star rating in Down Beat magazine, while another, more selective about taking writing assignments.
Heavy Love, was nominated for two Grammy awards.
fall/winter 2018 | the note | 29

‘Definitive Jazz’
In a Down Beat review of a 1985 performance by Cohn and Sims
at the Blue Note club in New York City, reviewer Michael Bourne
began by recalling a review of the duo he’d read 20 years before.
Bourne wrote: “They were playing, the 1955 critic wrote,
definitive jazz. They’d call the tunes as they played –
something swinging, some ballads, some blues, whatever
they felt like playing. They didn’t fuss. They didn’t show off.
They just played jazz.”
Noting that nothing had changed in that respect, Bourne went
on to talk about the musical relationship between Cohn and
Sims as he himself saw it:
“They’ve always been a natural together… Al blew hard. Zoot
blew softer… Al’s sound is darker, full-throated, often honking
and hollering. Zoot’s sound is the more lyrical.
“If they were tap dancers, Al’s the heel-and-toe tapper, Zoot’s
more the sandman – but they dance to the same drummer.”
“After all these years,” Sims said on that occasion, “we’re still
learning from each other. We’re so comfortable together.”
Cohn had added, “We just have so darn much fun.”
Sims was visibly in failing health at that time, and died not long
afterward. The bassist that night at the Blue Note was Steve
Gilmore, an Upper Mount Bethel resident who would play with
Sims at his last performance.
As it happened, Gilmore also played with Cohn the very last
time he played publicly – last Dec. 29 at the Deer Head Inn, in a
concert to benefit this area’s Planned Parenthood service.
Fond Memories
Gilmore knew Cohn as a man and musician, and fondly recalled
both aspects.
“He was a very witty person.” Gilmore said. “He had the kind of
sense of humor that just made him the best person in the world
to tell a joke. He was also gentle, and very soulful. And of course
he was one of the geniuses of the tenor saxophone.
“To me the mark of a really great jazz musician is a sound that
you can recognize instantly. He had that quality. He was able to
get past the notes of the music and put himself into the music.
You could always tell it was him.”
Drummer Bill Goodwin’s association with Cohn began on an
evening in 1971. Goodwin had gotten a last-minute call to sit in
with Al and Zoot in New York.
“I was thrilled,” said Goodwin, who had long regarded Cohn’s
playing with something like reverence. “It had been in my mind
for a long time to work with them. I’d admired Al Cohn since I
was a teenager. I just dropped everything and went.”
As it turned out, the bassist that evening was also a last-minute
substitute whose musical talent was less formidable that the
date’s demands. Though Goodwin’s first association with Cohn
was inauspicious from a musical standpoint, there would be
many future occasions, musical and otherwise, that more than
made up for it.
30 | the note | fall/winter 2018

“Al was a musical authority on the highest possible level,”
Goodwin said, adding, “He was a very intelligent, nonjudgmental, encouraging person who began and ended every
conversation with a joke.”
‘Beautiful person’
Cohn was a frequent visitor at Goodwin’s home when the
drummer lived in Mount Bethel some years ago. Cohn would
sometimes divide his visiting time between fishing a pond on
the property, and being a friend to Goodwin’s young son.
“Al treated my son as an equal, even when he was a little kid,”
said Goodwin. “And I remember one time after Al left, my son
said, “You know, Dad, Al is really pretty.” Well, what he’d meant
to say, of course, was that Al was a beautiful person. I called Al
the next day and told him, and he just cracked up.”
Saxophonist Phil Woods has perhaps over the years surpassed
Cohn in terms of popularity, but Woods regarded Cohn not only
as a peer but a mentor.
“I knew Al since ’54 or ’55,” Woods said. “He helped me get
through the first tour I was ever on. It was back in ’56, I think,
with the Birdland All Stars… there was Lester Young, Sarah
Vaughn, Bud Powell…
“Anyway, when I met the bus, I got on and I heard a voice way
in the back, ‘C’mon and sit back here, Phil.’ It was Al. He guided
me through.”
As a player, Woods said, “Al was always considered the very
best. He never wasted a note. He was a guy who could weave a
tune with incredible magic, given the same piece of music that
all the rest of us had. He was Mister Music. I’m going to miss
him dearly – as a neighbor, a friend, and a musician.”
Deer Head Inn operator Bob Lehr knew Cohn the musician more
than Cohn the man, but Lehr formed some lasting impressions
about both aspects.
“I always remember him as a fellow who was smiling when
he came through here,” Lehr said. “I’m going to miss him as a
happy spirit and soul. I knew his music ever since the 50s. And I
remember him as playing perhaps the longest, most lyrical lines
of any jazz improviser I’ve ever heard.”
The disparity between the musical mark that Cohn made and
his popularity is perhaps not so mysterious, Bill Goodwin said.
“As a musician, there’s only a handful of people you can put
in that category,” the drummer said. “But certainly he had this
other career (as an arranger) going, and he was among the best
at that. Al wrote the book on modern-day big band arranging.
“I’d say it (arranging) was probably a business decision. I mean,
he could probably make his income for the year by writing two
TV specials. But in later years, he told me that he wanted to put
that aside and concentrate on his music.
“He did, too. He was still working on his sound at the age of
60. You know, that’s a remarkable thing. So maybe the public
fame was something he never achieved. But in terms of what
was really important – taking your art to the ultimate – he was
among the most successful. n

Dave Liebman
Photo by Matt Vashlishan

David Liebman:
Smithsonian
Institute NEA Jazz
Masters Project
Bill Kirchner with David Liebman Part 4

Kirchner: Coltrane and Dolphy, among others, took
lessons with Joe Allard, right?
Liebman: That’s the folklore.
Kirchner: I first heard about him from Pat LaBarbera,
who took lessons from him.
Liebman: Everybody came to see Joe. He was the
doctor. If you came to New York, you had to see Joe. He
took everybody. He made room for you, and he gave

you that one lesson. In the end, that’s what it was. That one lesson, three
hours, you got it. There was nothing more to show you about saxophone.
All you had to do is just keep doing it over and over again for the rest of your
life, because it’s all about getting the body in tune, and there was nothing
more to tell you. That’s what he did. He was at the essence of what it was to
play. It was very sad, because he was like, “It’s easier than you think. You’re
singing. You’re talking. Just extend what you do when you sing.” It sounds so
simple, but it was very difficult to grasp, especially when you come in with
all kinds of bad habits.
fall/winter 2018 | the note | 31

He hated Larry Teal. He thought that the whole
Larry Teal thing – I can’t tell you I’m intimate with
what Larry Teal’s method was, but he would talk
about it like, “That’s telling a kid to do certain things,
and that’s just going to make them more nervous
and more uptight and more strained. How can you
play music when you’re under stress and strain and
under pressures and tension?” He resented anybody
– I know that was his mantra. The more you think
about it, the worse it’s going to get, because you’re
going to be self-conscious. You can’t play music –
[Liebman speaks with his mouth clenched] “It’s like
me talking like this. How can I talk like this?” That’s
what he would say.
He was funny. He was a very nice guy. He was a warm
man. Also, the last 15 minutes were spent fixing
your reeds. He could take this [object unknown] and
make it play. “Give me that. Knife. Sandpaper.” You’d
watch this guy make – I could do it now. I don’t do
it. I could do it. He’d say, “Give me that reed. Let me
take care of that reed for you.” That was the last 15
minutes. He loved it. He had this little table with the
sandpaper, the reed rush, little things like that.
He was a very humane guy, and I stayed friends
with him and continued my relationship with him.
I guess I was one of his prize students. Grossman
studied with him, Eddie Daniels, Dave Tofani. These
were some of the names of guys that I knew. That’s
how I knew Eddie Daniels’ name. Joe taught at New
England Conservatory, so he was in Boston. Anytime
I was playing those clubs, he’d come. He’d be the
only… you’d see gray hair. It was Joe Allard! Students
would bring him, take him back to the hotel or
wherever he slept. He met Miles. He met Elvin.
As I got older, somewhere in my 20s, five to ten years
later, I realized the significance of his teaching - of
his lessons. Then it was more like, the guru. With
all respect, I’d go up and check things out with him.
I would have him check me out. The book I wrote
(Developing a Personal Saxophone Sound) was me
talking to him over two summers of discussion on
cassette and everything. My book is him talking,
filtered through me. It’s all the things he talked about,
which I wasn’t sure of when he was doing them. Ten
years later now, I’m 30 years old, 35 years old, and
I’m like, “Joe, what did you mean by the E position?
What did you mean by the V position for the lower
lip? What did you mean by the tongue and the soft
palette and all that?” I really pushed him, because
I realized he was a good teacher, but he was not
very detailed, and he was a little more general than
I like to be with a student, and there were holes in
what I had understood. Alone, I had written it down.
32 | the note | fall/winter 2018

I would walk out of the lesson. There were no cassette machines or
anything. I would go home on the subway and I write down his notes, and I
realized there are things that I didn’t understand what I was talking about.
I said, “Joe, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to talk to you about some
things that I’m just not clear about.” He said, “Yeah, go ahead, write away.”
I had the whole list. It took several days over two summers at his summer
home in New Hampshire. That’s what the book and the video are about.
His thing is about getting the body in tune and getting it right, so that you
start at an even plane. Then you pick what you want to play. That’s why
he taught classical and jazz. He didn’t care. He was very ecumenical, which
those guys weren’t, in those days. There was a real separation between
the classical saxophone and jazz, or trumpet, everybody. It was like, “Don’t
do that in this room!” That type of thing. He didn’t care. He was about
understanding the concepts, and you choose the music. That’s up to you.
What you want to do musically is your business. But he had the Giant
Steps solo in the corner. I remember coming up one day, and I saw the
transcription. I said, “That’s very interesting, Joe. What’s that?” He said,
“That’s… one of the students gave me that. That’s what John [Coltrane]
played on this tune called Giant Steps. Are you familiar with this?” “Hmmm,
a little bit.” He said, “Oh, it’s a fascinating study, very difficult to play.”
That’s great, classic! I love it.
Kirchner: Let’s get back to Ten Wheel Drive. You were on salary with them.
How many gigs? Did you record with them?
Liebman: You worked. You worked. You toured. You got on the bus. You
went South. We worked. We worked opposite Sly [Stone]. We worked
opposite other groups. Worked at festivals. They never attained gigantic
success. It was mostly East Coast, never overseas. But you worked or
rehearsed. It was a show. We had parts. As I said, I had to get a soprano.
I had clarinet parts. I took a solo with the girl and played a bluesy thing. I
was the big jazz man in the band. I was Mr. Jazz and all that.
This was one of the great lessons of my life, actually. I was into macrobiotics
very strictly when I got this job. I was really trying to follow it. Chick was into
it. Dave was into it. Grossman. It was a whole thing. We baked bread every
night. It was rice and vegetables, yin-yang, Greenberg’s on 8th Street, St.
Marks Place, the only health-food place in New York. We’d come out with
40 pounds of millet, 40 pounds of bulgur wheat, put it in the taxi. It was out!
So now we’re on the road.
Kirchner: Good luck.
Liebman: I carry a bag with nuts and raisins. In fact, they nicknamed me
on the record, the Illustrious Raisin. I had a nickname, because I used to
carry a little bag, a little leather pouch. I’m on the road with them. We’re in
Gainesville, Florida, 90,000 degrees outside, at a rock festival. Everybody is
hanging out at the pool, frolicking. I’m in the room with a Bunsen Burner
or whatever, and tahini, rice cakes, because I’m going to be on my diet,
and eat my shit! I’m seeing them out there at the pool, and I said, there’s
something wrong with this picture. This is not good. You have to go with
the flow, Dave. Because I was resisting it, really resisting it. I was smoking,
doing everything they were doing, but I had my Mu tea. I was really trying
to maintain my thing. And also because jazz, and I’m the jazz man, I’m a
serious guy! These guys are just… they’re potheads, and they’re rock-androll. Great guys, though. I realized that when in Rome, do as the Romans.
It’s better for you. You’ll learn much more, and you’ll come out being a
fuller person. That was the big lesson from Ten Wheel Drive.

Kirchner: How long did the gig with Ten Wheel
Drive last?
Liebman: The upshot is, we had a fight with
management. En masse, the horn section quit. Big
letter to the Village Voice. This is basically capitalist,
the moguls versus the worker. We went out. We
were probably right, I don’t know. It was one of these
star-versus-the-sidemen things. It became us versus
them. The band decided to quit. Three of us – I can’t
recall. It was me, John Eckert… Anyway, somehow I
met Jimmy Strassburg, and he put us together with
a guitar player named Link Chamberlain.
Kirchner: The first night I heard you was the night
I heard you with Link Chamberlain and Jimmy
Strassburg.
Liebman: Is this in Rapson’s?
Kirchner: Rapson’s. John Stowell brought me up
there.
Liebman: This is out. This is the story of – I don’t
know how I got there, but that’s how – we took the
horn section . . .
Kirchner: With Enrico Rava and Frank Vicari.
Liebman: Yes, and we started a band called Sawbuck
with a singer, named Sky Ford. He was a killer – and
Link. One guitar, bass, and three horns. An amazing
instrumentation, actually. No keyboard, no two
guitars. Link was a pretty heavy guy. Great tunes. He
played great. He was jazz, but he was also rock. This
band became a real thing. We went and we worked.
We didn’t live together, but it was rock band time,
the whole idea that your band is your life, and you’ve
got to rehearse every day. Kind of coming out of Ten
Wheel Drive, but now it was like, “It’s our band, and
we’re going to get a contract, and we’re going to do
it, blah blah blah.” Anyway, it ends up that we get a
contract with Motown Records. The first white group
for Motown. They started a new division. Just when
we got the contract, after six months of working on
this – ’69, ’70, during the loft period, I get the gig
with Elvin! This is all coming in the same period.
I’ll never forget it, because when I got the gig with
Elvin – that’s another story – but when I got the gig
with Elvin, I went to that next meeting and said,
Sawbuck 1970 with Pee Wee Ellis
(Sax) and Jimmy Strassburg

“Gentlemen, I’m one of the leaders of the group. We’re about to have our
break. Elvin Jones asked me to join the group.” I was in tears, because it
was like family, all the girlfriends. You’re living together. They said, “Are you
kidding? Are you kidding me? There’s no question about this. God bless you.
Good luck.” And they went on to record. They went on to have a little bit
of limited success. Sawbuck. That was the name of the band, with Jimmy
Strassburg, Link, Sky Ford, John Eckert, John Gatchell – the other trumpet
player. Vicari came in, or was he there at the beginning? I forget. And
eventually Pee Wee. That’s how I met Pee Wee Ellis. That’s when I began
my relationship with Pee Wee that ended up six years later turning into the
Ellis–Liebman band. I still wanted to do this rock thing at some point.
In any case, that was an interesting period. That morphed into Elvin. What
Ten Wheel Drive did for me was stop my straight life. I didn’t have to teach
anymore. I took the tie off, grew a beard. That was the end of tie and suit.
I remember that. That was the big symbolic thing. I don’t have to put a
tie on anymore, and I don’t have to go to PS 21 in the Bronx at 7:30 in the
morning and be a substitute teacher, which is the death. So Ten Wheel
Drive was the beginning of officially making my living only from music. It
enabled me to do that, and that morphed into Elvin. This is all during the
same thing, during the loft period. This is all happening simultaneously.
Kirchner: How did you get the gig with Elvin?
Liebman: When Gene Perla got the gig, he said, “I’m going to get you
and Grossman on it. Watch.” He said, “Watch me.” Sure enough, man, six
months later, I get a call. So this is January of ’70, maybe? It’s ’70 or ’71.
11:30 at night, the phone rings. Gene says, “We’re at Slugs. Elvin wants to
hear you right now. Come now.” I get into a taxi at 19th Street, that loft.
Went to East 3rd. I walk in. It’s so dramatic. Elvin’s standing at the bar with
Joe Farrell. I think I see Gene. I don’t know. I walk in. There’s nobody there.
There’s four people. It’s a winter night, 12:30 at night. I had my tenor. He
says, “Are you ready?” Just like that. I said, “Uh, yeah, I guess so.” “Get
your horn out.” Joe doesn’t say anything. He’s just standing there. So I go
up. It’s Gene, Elvin, and me, no Joe. He says, “What do you want to play?”
So I figured, I’ve been once successful. I’ll try it again. I do “Softly” again.
I figured if it worked once, drummers must like it. It’s my tune I know the
best. I played Softly as a Morning Sunrise. “Next. You know Yesterdays?” I
said yeah. Then A Night in Tunisia. Three tunes, 40 minutes, something like
that. Done at 1:30am, we get off the stand. I don’t know what I played. I
have no idea. He said, “I’m recording next week at Rudy’s. You know where
that is?” I said yeah. He said, “Bring a tune, 10am, Thursday.” Okay, that’s
it. Wow. Now what?
A week later, we do the record Genesis. That date is the first tune I
recorded my tune Slumber, which I had written based on Speak No Evil, for
Elvin. Amazing. The tune is completely… me and Gene are completely in
the wrong place. That was 10am. By 10:30 we were doing Slumber. I don’t
think I recorded three times before that, in my life. Who knows how many
times I’d been in the studio? And I’m with Elvin Jones and his trio, and it’s
Rudy Van Gelder, who’s the most unfriendly cat in creation, right up until
the last time I was there, actually. Not to me personally, just cold, ice.
Kirchner: He’s nothing if not consistent.
Liebman: And I’m like a kid. Come on. I’m so scared, I’m shaking in my
boots. I’m doing a trio with Elvin Jones at Rudy Van Gelder’s, where
Coltrane recorded with Elvin. I’m 25 years old. n
fall/winter 2018 | the note | 33

Readers,

please take note
The ACMJC and the Jazz Lounge
at Kemp Library
Visit esu.edu/jazzatesu to stay up to date on
everything happening at the Collection.
From jazz concerts on campus to Zoot Fest to Jazz
Lounge Lectures, any information will be available on
this website. We hope to see you at a future event!

Zoot Fest!
Join us for Zoot Fest 2018 on Thursday, March 29th
2018 in the Cecilia S. Cohen Recital Hall in the Fine and
Performing Arts Building at East Stroudsburg University.
Details and ticket pre-sales will be available on
www.esu.edu/jazzatesu

ACMJC on WESS 90.3
Tune in to 90.3 FM WESS radio one Saturday a month
to hear Collection Coordinator Matt Vashlishan
showcase some of the unique recordings hidden in
the ACMJC.
Visit esu.edu/jazzatesu for updates to the schedule.

Big Band Night at the Deer Head Inn!
Join the Water Gap Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Matt
Vashlishan the last Monday of every month at the Deer Head Inn
for a great evening of big band jazz. Each month the ensemble
performs original and arranged music from throughout
jazz history, as well as performing modern compositions by
many internationally recognized composers and arrangers,
specifically works available in the ACMJC: Phil Woods, Dick
Cone, Al Cohn, and more!
Sets at 7:30pm and 9:15pm, admission $10.
For more information visit www.deerheadinn.com

Pennsylvania Jazz Collective
PA Jazz focuses on improving the future through arts education.
The PA Jazz Collective is a Lehigh Valley based 501 (c) 3 organization
designed for educational and charitable purposes and to
specifically foster jazz appreciation through a regular series
of educational initiatives, public performances, and special
programs. The ACMJC appreciates all of the help that PA Jazz
provides, and celebrates the unique partnership of jazz in the
Pocono area.
www.pajazzcollective.org

Contributors and Acknowledgements
For additional information about contributors to
this issue of The Note, you can visit their websites:
Su Terry: www.suterry.com
Phil Woods: www.philwoods.com
Celebration Sax Quartet:
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/celebrationsaxquartet
David Liebman: www.davidliebman.com

34 | the note | fall/winter 2018

Special thanks to: Marcia Welsh, Ph.D., Brenda Friday,
Ph.D., Joanne Bruno, J.D., and Jingfeng Xia, Ph.D. for showing
their continued support for the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz
Collection and providing the opportunity to continue to present
this publication; Storm Heter for his insight and perspective on
jazz topics; Ideal Design Solutions for graphic design; Pat and
Mary Dorian for their support and hard work bringing some
of the very best articles to the publication; the ESU Staff for
making this publication possible; Louise Sims for her ongoing
support; all of the people and families that have donated over
the years to make the ACMJC a success for 30 years!

L ege n ds Live On
But not without
your support!

Representing all forms of Jazz
from all eras, the Al Cohn
Memorial Jazz Collection was
founded and named in honor
of the award-winning Al Cohn —
legendary saxophonist, arranger,
composer and conductor.
Housed in Kemp Library on the
campus of East Stroudsburg
University of Pennsylvania,
the collection consists of
jazz recordings, oral histories,
sheet music, photographs,
books, videos, original art and
memorabilia. The collection
also includes outreach programs.
Your financial support
of the collection is
crucial in helping promote
music education and preserving
the iconic jazz history of the
Pocono region.

Please make your gift by mail using the enclosed envelope
or online at www.esufoundation.org/supportalcohn
Be sure to designate your gift to the ACMJC. For personal assistance, call (800) 775-8975.

200 Prospect Street
East Stroudsburg, PA 18301-2999

A l C o hn
AC MJC